How to get Entity from DB including navigation properties and child list total amount - entity-framework

Question

I have next entity
public class Objective
{
public virtual UserInfo AssignedUser { get; set; }
public int? AssignedUserID { get; set; }
public string ObjectiveText { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<ObjectiveTask> Tasks { get; set; }
public virtual UserInfo User { get; set; }
public int UserID { get; set; }
}
One objective could has one Assigned User and one User but many Tasks.
After getting Entity from DB I map it to DTO class which looks like this
public class ObjectiveListViewModel
{
public string AssignedString { get; set; }
public string ObjectiveText { get; set; }
public int TasksCount { get; set; }
public string UserContactName { get; set; }
}
Mapping settings doesn't meter
When I do this with query like this
(from objective in context.Set<Objective>() select objective)
.Include(o => o.User)
.Include(o => o.AssignedUser)
.ToListAsync();
Everything works cool - User and Assigned User properties are loaded and no need do extra query to DB to get their data.
But I need return objectives with tasks amount.
To do this I've created a generic class
public class EntitySubCount<TEntity>
{
public TEntity Entity { get; set; }
public int GroupCount { get; set; }
}
And use it in this way
(from objective in context.Set<Objective>() select objective)
.Include(o => o.User)
.Include(o => o.AssignedUser)
.Select(o=> new EntitySubCount<Objective> {
Entity = o,
GroupCount = o.Tasks.Count })
.ToListAsync();
But User and Assigned User properties are not loaded and it require additional query to DB to get their data.
I understand that it because lazy loading.
The question is - how I can get from DB my Entity with loaded nav. properties and with count of Tasks at once?
Thank you for any help

Answer 1

You are close. No need for the includes if you are projecting. In this case I project to an anonymous type, but you could create a ViewModel class to project to if desired.
var objectiveList = context.Objectives
.Select(o => new
{
Entity = o,
// or you could just pick the properties:
ObjectiveText = o.ObjectiveText,
User = o.User,
AssignedUser = o.AssignedUser,
GroupCount = o.Tasks.Count
}).ToList();
EDIT: I see you already have a ViewModel(DTO). You might be looking for something like this:
var objectiveList = context.Objectives
.Select(o => new ObjectiveListViewModel
{
AssignedString = o.AssignedUser.Name,
ObjectiveText = o.ObjectiveText,
TasksCount = o.Tasks.Count
UserContactName = o.User.Name
}).ToList();