Best method to query records and get count - entity-framework

I am trying to query records from the DB using Entity Framework. I need to get the total count of records as well as the actual records. What is the best approach to do this
public IEnumerable<mFeedback> RetrieveAll(QueryOptions qOptions)
{
if (qOptions == null)
throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(qOptions));
using (_db)
{
var feedback = _db.Feedbacks
.Where(f => f.isDeleted == false);
if (qOptions.GetCount)
qOptions.TotalRecordsCount = feedback.Count();
feedback = feedback.OrderBy(string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(qOptions.Sort) ? nameof(eFeedback.CreatedDate) : qOptions.Sort)
.Skip(qOptions.Skip)
.Take(qOptions.PageSize);
return _mapper.Map<IEnumerable<eFeedback>, IEnumerable<mFeedback>>(feedback.ToList());
}
}
The current code i have is shown above. This produces 2 hits on the DB. Is there a better approach?
Thanks in advance

Related

LINQ contains and fix

I have a LINQ query
var age = new int[]{1,2,3};
dbContext.TA.WHERE(x=> age.Contains( x.age)).ToList()
In an online article #11 (https://medium.com/swlh/entity-framework-common-performance-mistakes-cdb8861cf0e7) mentioned it is not a good practice as it creates many execution plan at the SQL server.
In this case, how should LINQ be revised so that I can do the same thing but minimize the amount of execution plans generated?
(note that I have no intention to convert it into a stored procedure and pass & join with the UDT as again it requires too many effort to do so)
That article offers some good things to keep in mind when writing expressions for EF. As a general rule that example is something to keep in mind, not a hard "never do this" kind of rule. It is a warning over writing queries that allow for multi-select and to avoid this when possible as it will be on the more expensive side.
In your example with something like "Ages", having a hard-coded list of values does not cause a problem because every execution uses the same list. (until the app is re-compiled with a new list, or you have code that changes the list for some reason.) Examples where it can be perfectly valid to use this is with something like Statuses where you have a status Enum. If there are a small number of valid statuses that a record can have, then declaring a common array of valid statuses to use in an Contains clause is fine:
public void DeleteEnquiry(int enquiryId)
{
var allowedStatuses = new[] { Statuses.Pending, Statuses.InProgress, Statuses.UnderReview };
var enquiry = context.Enquiries
.Where(x => x.EnquiryId == enquiryId && allowedStatuses.Contains(x.Status))
.SingleOrDefault();
try
{
if(enquiry != null)
{
enquiry.IsActive = false;
context.SaveChanges();
}
else
{
// Enquiry not found or invalid status.
}
}
catch (Exception ex) { /* handle exception */ }
}
The statuses in the list aren't going to change so the execution plan is static for that context.
The problem is where you accept something like a parameter with criteria that include a list for a Contains clause.
it is highly unlikely that someone would want to load data where a user could select ages "2, 4, and 6", but rather they would want to select something like: ">=2", or "<=6, or "2>=6" So rather than creating a method that accepts a list of acceptable ages:
public IEnumerable<Children> GetByAges(int[] ages)
{
return _dbContext.Children.Where(x => ages.Contains( x.Age)).ToList();
}
You would probably be better served with ranging the parameters:
private IEnumerable<Children> GetByAgeRange(int? minAge = null, int? maxAge = null)
{
var query = _dbContext.Children.AsQueryable();
if (minAge.HasValue)
query = query.Where(x => x.Age >= minAge.Value);
if (maxAge.HasValue)
query = query.Where(x => x.Age <= maxAge.Value);
return query.ToList();
}
private IEnumerable<Children> GetByAge(int age)
{
return _dbContext.Children.Where(x => x.Age == age).ToList();
}

Entity Framework is too slow during mapping data up to 100k

I have min 100 000 data into a Job_Details table and I'm using Entity Framework to map the data.
This is the code:
public GetJobsResponse GetImportJobs()
{
GetJobsResponse getJobResponse = new GetJobsResponse();
List<JobBO> lstJobs = new List<JobBO>();
using (NSEXIM_V2Entities dbContext = new NSEXIM_V2Entities())
{
var lstJob = dbContext.Job_Details.ToList();
foreach (var dbJob in lstJob.Where(ie => ie.IMP_EXP == "I" && ie.Job_No != null))
{
JobBO job = MapBEJobforSearchObj(dbJob);
lstJobs.Add(job);
}
}
getJobResponse.Jobs = lstJobs;
return getJobResponse;
}
I found to this line is taking about 2-3 min to execute
var lstJob = dbContext.Job_Details.ToList();
How can i solve this issue?
To outline the performance issues with your example: (see inline comments)
public GetJobsResponse GetImportJobs()
{
GetJobsResponse getJobResponse = new GetJobsResponse();
List<JobBO> lstJobs = new List<JobBO>();
using (NSEXIM_V2Entities dbContext = new NSEXIM_V2Entities())
{
// Loads *ALL* entities into memory. This effectively takes all fields for all rows across from the database to your app server. (Even though you don't want it all)
var lstJob = dbContext.Job_Details.ToList();
// Filters from the data in memory.
foreach (var dbJob in lstJob.Where(ie => ie.IMP_EXP == "I" && ie.Job_No != null))
{
// Maps the entity to a DTO and adds it to the return collection.
JobBO job = MapBEJobforSearchObj(dbJob);
lstJobs.Add(job);
}
}
// Returns the DTOs.
getJobResponse.Jobs = lstJobs;
return getJobResponse;
}
First: pass your WHERE clause to EF to pass to the DB server rather than loading all entities into memory..
public GetJobsResponse GetImportJobs()
{
GetJobsResponse getJobResponse = new GetJobsResponse();
using (NSEXIM_V2Entities dbContext = new NSEXIM_V2Entities())
{
// Will pass the where expression to be DB server to be executed. Note: No .ToList() yet to leave this as IQueryable.
var jobs = dbContext.Job_Details..Where(ie => ie.IMP_EXP == "I" && ie.Job_No != null));
Next, use SELECT to load your DTOs. Typically these won't contain as much data as the main entity, and so long as you're working with IQueryable you can load related data as needed. Again this will be sent to the DB Server so you cannot use functions like "MapBEJobForSearchObj" here because the DB server does not know this function. You can SELECT a simple DTO object, or an anonymous type to pass to a dynamic mapper.
var dtos = jobs.Select(ie => new JobBO
{
JobId = ie.JobId,
// ... populate remaining DTO fields here.
}).ToList();
getJobResponse.Jobs = dtos;
return getJobResponse;
}
Moving the .ToList() to the end will materialize the data into your JobBO DTOs/ViewModels, pulling just enough data from the server to populate the desired rows and with the desired fields.
In cases where you may have a large amount of data, you should also consider supporting server-side pagination where you pass a page # and page size, then utilize a .Skip() + .Take() to load a single page of entries at a time.

Why does this query always return ALL records?

I'm using WCF RIA in a Lightswitch project to create some query results. This query brings back all results regardless. I cannot make it filter the records based on the parameter passed (string Town).
public IQueryable<Enquiries> TestQuery(string Town)
{
List<Enquiries> riaenqs = new List<Enquiries>();
var enqs = this.Context.ClientEnquiries
.Include("Client")
.Include("Client.Town")
.OrderBy(enq => enq.Id);
if (Town != null)
{
enqs.Where(enq => enq.Client.Town.TownName == Town);
}
foreach (ClientEnquiry item in enqs.ToList())
{
Enquiries enq = new Enquiries();
enq.Id = item.Id;
enq.ClientName = item.Client.FirstName + " " + item.Client.Surname;
enq.Town = item.Client.Town != null ? item.Client.Town.TownName : null;
riaenqs.Add(enq);
}
return riaenqs.AsQueryable();
}
During debugging I can see that the Town is correctly populated and I can see that the query is built accordingly if Town is not null. However, when I hit the foreach statement where the linq to ef query is executed I always get all the results. I just cannot figure out where I'm slipping up.
The LINQ methods like the Where do not modify the collection/expression but always returning a new one.
So you need to reassign the result of the Where to your original variable enqs:
if (Town != null)
{
enqs = enqs.Where(enq => enq.Client.Town.TownName == Town);
}

How to obtain a subset of records within a context using EntityFramework?

A newbie question. I am using EntityFramework 4.0. The backend database has a function that will return a subset of records based on time.
Example of working code is:
var query = from rx in context.GetRxByDate(tencounter,groupid)
select rx;
var result = context.CreateDetachedCopy(query.ToList());
return result;
I need to verify that a record does not exist in the database before inserting a new record. Before performing the "Any" filter, I would like to populate the context.Rxes with a subset of the larger backend database using the above "GetRxByDate()" function.
I do not know how to populate "Rxes" before performing any further filtering since Rxes is defined as
IQueryable<Rx> Rxes
and does not allow "Rxes =.. ". Here is what I have so far:
using (var context = new EnityFramework())
{
if (!context.Rxes.Any(c => c.Cform == rx.Cform ))
{
// Insert new record
Rx r = new Rx();
r.Trx = realtime;
context.Add(r);
context.SaveChanges();
}
}
I am fully prepared to kick myself since I am sure the answer is simple.
All help is appreciated. Thanks.
Edit:
If I do it this way, "Any" seems to return the opposite results of what is expected:
var g = context.GetRxByDate(tencounter, groupid).ToList();
if( g.Any(c => c.Cform == rx.Cform ) {....}

Entity Framework - Issue returning Relationship Entity

Ok, I must be working too hard because I can't get my head around what it takes to use the Entity Framework correctly.
Here is what I am trying to do:
I have two tables: HeaderTable and DetailTable. The DetailTable will have 1 to Many records for each row in HeaderTable. In my EDM I set up a Relationship between these two tables to reflect this.
Since there is now a relationship setup between these tables, I thought that by quering all the records in HeaderTable, I would be able to access the DetailTable collection created by the EDM (I can see the property when quering, but it's null).
Here is my query (this is a Silverlight app, so I am using the DomainContext on the client):
// myContext is instatiated with class scope
EntityQuery<Project> query = _myContext.GetHeadersQuery();
_myContext.Load<Project>(query);
Since these calls are asynchronous, I check the values after the callback has completed. When checking the value of _myContext.HeaderTable I have all the rows expected. However, the DetailsTable property within _myContext.HeaderTable is empty.
foreach (var h in _myContext.HeaderTable) // Has records
{
foreach (var d in h.DetailTable) // No records
{
string test = d.Description;
}
I'm assuming my query to return all HeaderTable objects needs to be modified to somehow return all the HeaderDetail collectoins for each HeaderTable row. I just don't understand how this non-logical modeling stuff works yet.
What am I doing wrong? Any help is greatly appriciated. If you need more information, just let me know. I will be happy to provide anything you need.
Thanks,
-Scott
What you're probably missing is the Include(), which I think is out of scope of the code you provided.
Check out this cool video; it explained everything about EDM and Linq-to-Entities to me:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/ff628210.aspx
In case you can't view video now, check out this piece of code I have based on those videos (sorry it's not in Silverlight, but it's the same basic idea, I hope).
The retrieval:
public List<Story> GetAllStories()
{
return context.Stories.Include("User").Include("StoryComments").Where(s => s.HostID == CurrentHost.ID).ToList();
}
Loading the the data:
private void LoadAllStories()
{
lvwStories.DataSource = TEContext.GetAllStories();
lvwStories.DataBind();
}
Using the data:
protected void lvwStories_ItemDataBound(object sender, ListViewItemEventArgs e)
{
if (e.Item.ItemType == ListViewItemType.DataItem)
{
Story story = e.Item.DataItem as Story;
// blah blah blah....
hlStory.Text = story.Title;
hlStory.NavigateUrl = "StoryView.aspx?id=" + story.ID;
lblStoryCommentCount.Text = "(" + story.StoryComments.Count.ToString() + " comment" + (story.StoryComments.Count > 1 ? "s" : "") + ")";
lblStoryBody.Text = story.Body;
lblStoryUser.Text = story.User.Username;
lblStoryDTS.Text = story.AddedDTS.ToShortTimeString();
}
}