Entity Framework, how to treat a view as a child table - entity-framework

I have a table, call it Transaction, and a view, call it TransactionExtra, which is based on Transaction, e.g., create view TransactionExtra select t.id as t_id, x.* from Transaction t join X x on ....
In Entity Framework, I'd like to be able to access TransactionExtras objects from Transaction objects, ("create a navigation property") e.g., transaction.TransactionExtra, just as if TransactionExtra were a table with a foreign key to T.
How can I do this in the EDMX visual editor?
At present I'm doing it manually:
static TransactionExtra extra(Entities db, transaction t)
{
return db.TransactionExtra.Where(x => x.t_id == t.id).FirstOrDefault();
}
For every Transaction there is zero or one TransactionExtra.
I can't seem to figure out how to tell EntityFrameworkEDMX to map the property.
Thanks.

Related

Breeze with stored procedure CLR error

Im trying to call a stored procedure using Entity framework.
If I go direcly to the web api method it works fine, but when calling it from breeze it causes an exception on the metadata method.
The error is :
"Could not find the CLR type for...".
Anyone know how to fix this?
I had the very same issue, but thank God I figured out a solution. Instead of using a stored procedure, you should use a view, as Breeze recognizes views as DbSet<T>, just like tables. Say you have a SQL server table that contains two tables Customers and Orders.
Customers (**CustomerId**, FirstName, LastName)
Orders (OrderId, #CustomerId, OrderDate, OrderTotal)
Now, say you want a query that returns orders by CustomerId. Usually, you would do that in a stored procedure, but as I said, you need to use a view instead. So the query will look like this in the view.
Select o.OrderId, c.CustomerId, o.OrderDate, o.OrderTotal
from dbo.Orders o inner join dbo.Customers c on c.CustomerId = o.CustomerId
Notice there is no filtering (where ...). So:
i. Create a [general] view that includes the filtering key(s) and name it, say, OrdersByCustomers
ii. Add the OrdersByCustomers view to the entity model in your VS project
iii. Add the entity to the Breeze controller, as such:
public IQueryable<OrdersByCustomers> OrdersByCustomerId(int id)
{
return _contextProvider.Context.OrdersByCustomers
.Where(r => r.CustomerId == id);
}
Notice the .Where(r => r.CustomerId == id) filter. We could do it in the data service file, but because we want the user to see only his personal data, we need to filter from the server so it only returns his data.
iv. Now, that the entity is set in the controller, you may invoke it in the data service file, as such:
var getOrdersByCustomerId = function(orderObservable, id)
{
var query = breeze.EntityQuery.from('OrdersByCustomerId')
.WithParameters({ CustomerId: id });
return manager.executeQuery(query)
.then(function(data) {
if (orderObservable) orderObservable(data.results);
}
.fail(function(e) {
logError('Retrieve Data Failed');
}
}
v. You probably know what to do next from here.
Hope it helps.

Trace Entity Framework 4.0 : Extra queries for foreign keys

In the following example, we insert an entity called taskinstance to our context. we have a foreign key FK_Contract that we set at 2.
entity.FK_Contract = 2;
context.TaskInstances.AddObject(entity);
The query generated by entity framework is a simple insert. (everything is fine)
However, the following query works differently.
int contractId = context.Contracts.Where((T) => T.Name == contractName).Single().Id;
entity.FK_Contract = contractId;
context.TaskInstances.AddObject(entity);
In the trace created by entity framework we see without surprise the query selecting the Id according a contractName but we also see an extra request looking like:
select id,... from [TaskInstances] WHERE [Extent1].[FK_Task] = #contractId
This extra query leads to many problems, especially when we work with a foreign table with millions of record. The network goes down!
Therefore we 'd like to figure out the purpose of this extra query and the way to make it disappear.
It looks like the extra query is populating a collection of tasks on the returned Contract object. Try projecting just the column you want:
int contractId = context.Contracts
.Where(T => T.Name == contractName)
.Select(T => T.Id)
.Single();

Entity Framework atypical 1-[0..1] -- model-only Association -- EF LINQ select possibilities

Suppose the following tables
ParentEntities
ParentID
ChildEntities
ChildID
ParentID
These tables do not have a FK defined in the schema.
In EF designer, after generating from DB, I add an association:
- Parent Multiplicity: 1
- Child Multiplicity: 0 or 1
When I build, I get the error: "Error 3027: No mapping specified for the following EntitySet/AssociationSet - ParentChild"
But if I try to configure table mapping for the association like this..
Maps to ChildEntities
Parent
ParentID <-> ParentID (parent entity prop <-> child table column)
Child
ChildID <-> ChildID (child entity prop <-> child table column)
.. I get this: Error 3007: Problem in mapping fragments starting at lines xxx, xxx: Column(s) [ParentID] are being mapped in both fragments to different conceptual side properties.
Why this is an error doesn't make sense. Limitation of the current implementation?
[EDIT 1]
I'm able to make this work by creating a 1-N association. That's not ideal, but it works just the same, just have to add a read-only child property in a partial:
public partial class Parent
{
public Child Child { get { return Childs.Any() ? null : Childs.First(); } }
}
This seems like the best solution for me. I had to add a FK to the database to get EF to generate the association and navigation property, but once it was added I was able to remove the FK, and further updates to the model from the DB did not remove the association or Navigation properties.
[EDIT 2]
As I was investigating how to work around not caring about the association being modeled in EF, I ran into another issue. Instead of the read-only Child property I made it normal ..
public partial class Parent
{
public Child Child { get; set; }
}
.. but now I need a way to materialize that from the query:
var query = from parents in context.Parents
// pointless join given select
join child in context.Childs
on parents.ParentID equals child.ParentID
select parents;
I can select an anonymous type ..
// step 1
var query = from parents in context.Parents
join child in context.Childs
on parents.ParentID equals child.ParentID
select new { Parent = parents, Child = child };
.. but then I've got to consume more cycles getting that into my entity:
// step 2
var results = query.Select(x => {
var parent = x.Parent;
parent.Child = x.Child;
return parent; });
Is there a better/streamlined way to do this from the query select so the EF materializer can do it from the get-go? If not, then I'll resort to Edit 1 methodology ..
Ef Code first requires 1->0..1 relationships for the Child to have the same primary key.
Maybe this a similar restriction In the modeler in this circumstance.
ParentId (Key) required in Both tables.
I have never tried adding such relationships in designer afterwords in DB first.
EDIT: to match your EDIT2:
I would stay on the direction . Use Navigation properties to get from Join back to original class A and B.
query = context.Set<JoinTable>.Where(Jt=>Jt.NavA.Id == ClassAId
&& Jt.navB.Id == ClassBId)
use a select if your need entries returned from either ClassA or ClassB.

Entity Framework SubmitChanges

I have trigger on table A to change the column value on table B during new row insertion on table A.
Due to current design I am getting RowVersion error. So I am thinking to perform current trigger functionality on entity SubmitChanges. I believe that INotifyPropertyChanged fired on property change, in my case will be fired on table A property change, which is I not what I want. I want to perform operation on table A row insertion to update value on table B.
Anyone have idea what is better way to handle it?
You can overwrite SaveChanges, get all entities to be inserted to table A and perform your updates on entities from table B.
public override int SaveChanges(SaveOptions options)
{
foreach(TableA a in ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(EntityState.Added)
.Where(e => !e.IsRelationship)
.Select(e => e.Entity)
.OfType<TableA>())
{
// Here you can get your TableB entity and do an update
// If you don't have those entities already loaded you will load
// them one by one so it will probably need some additional
// adjustments for better performance
}
return base.SaveChanges(options);
}

EF delete entity with unloaded navigation property

I have an Entity. Mandate. Every mandate has a required:many relation to a Person (NavigationProperty). I use the DbContext API with (LazyLoadingEnabled, AutoDetectChangesEnabled, ValidateOnSaveEnabled, ProxyCreationEnabled)
Now I like to delete a Mandate entity. The mandate entities are loaded by another context with AsNoTracking().
message.Result.
ObserveOn(On<DataComposition>.Scheduler).
Where(r => r).
Subscribe(_ =>
{
using (var unit = UnitOfWork.Begin())
{
var mandate = this.SelectedItem.OriginalEntity;
this.mandateRepository.Attach(mandate);
// mandate.Person.ToString();
this.mandateRepository.Delete(mandate);
unit.Commit();
}
this.List.RemoveOnUi(this.SelectedItem);
});
Now during committing I get the following exception: Entities in 'CodeFirstContainer.Mandates' participate in the 'Mandate_Person' relationship. 0 related 'Mandate_Person_Target' were found. 1 'Mandate_Person_Target' is expected.
The delete works if I include the Person Property during the population/selection or if I visit the Property (lazyloading), but I DONT LIKE to materialize/hold many entities only for the deletion case and I DONT LIKE to trigger more than a single DELETE query to db!
The fact that, if you have the navigation property mandate.Person populated, the following SQL statement ...
delete [dbo].[Mandates]
where (([Id] = #0) and ([PersonId] = #1))
... is sent to the database, lets me think that the navigation property indeed must be populated with a person with the correct PersonId to delete the parent.
I have no idea why Entity Framework just doesn't send a delete statement with the primary key ...
delete [dbo].[Mandates]
where ([Id] = #0)
... as I had expected.
Edit
If the Mandate entity has a foreign key property PersonId for the Person navigation property, the expected SQL (the second above) is sent to the database. In this case the Person navigation property can be null and the value of the FK property PersonId doesn't matter.
Edit 2
If you don't want to introduce a FK property the way with the least DB-roundtrip-costs would probably be to fetch the person's Id and then create a dummy person with that key in memory:
// ...
var personId = context.Mandates
.Where(m => m.Id == mandate.Id)
.Select(m => m.Person.Id)
.Single();
mandate.Person = new Person { Id = personId };
this.mandateRepository.Attach(mandate);
this.mandateRepository.Delete(mandate);
// ...