This is making me feel like an idiot. Entity Framework is supposed to be fairly simple, yet I can't sort this out myself and clearly I've got a fundamental misunderstanding. I hope it doesn't turn out to be an idiot-question - sorry if it is.
Three code-first objects, related to one another.
public class Schedule
{
[Key, DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public Guid RowId { get; set; }
public DateTime Start { get; set; }
public DateTime End { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Charge> Charges { get; set; }
}
public class Charge
{
[Key, DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public Guid RowId { get; set; }
public decimal Rate { get; set; }
public Type Type { get; set; }
}
public class Type
{
[Key, DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public Guid RowId { get; set; }
public string TypeName { get; set; }
}
When I query this, I want all related types, so:
Schedule currentSchedule = _Context.Schedules
.Include("Charges.Type")
.Where(cs => cs.Start < dateWindow && cs.End > dateWindow)
.First();
In C#, this has been working fine.
The problem arises because we're not stopping at C#, but passing the data onto a javascript library called Breeze with smooths out data operations at the client end. Breeze has a bug/feature which demands that EF relationships between objects be specified at BOTH ENDS. So when I do my query above, I don't end up with any Types, because their relationship with Charge isn't directly specified.
So I change it to this:
public class Type
{
[Key, DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public Guid RowId { get; set; }
public string TypeName { get; set; }
public virtual Charge Charge { get; set; }
}
Because virtual is a navigation property, so that should enable Breeze should now to go both ways across the relationship without changing the data structure. But EF doesn't like this. It tells me:
Unable to determine the principal end of an association between the
types 'Core.Charge' and 'Core.Type'. The principal end of this
association must be explicitly configured using either the
relationship fluent API or data annotations
Fair enough. I can see how this could be confusing. Now, my understanding is that if you define a foreign key in a dependent class, it has to be that classes' primary key. So we change it to:
public class Type
{
[Key, ForeignKey("Charge"), DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public Guid RowId { get; set; }
public string TypeName { get; set; }
public virtual Charge Charge { get; set; }
}
And that seems to work but ... it's stopped loading any Type information when you ask for a schedule. Messing around with the includes doesn't seem to do anything at all.
What's going on, and what have I done wrong?
You haven't only added a navigation property (Type.Charge) to an existing model/relationship. Instead you have changed the relationship completely from a one-to-many to a one-to-one relationship because by default if a relationship has only one navigation property EF assumes a one-to-many relationship. With your change you have configured a one-to-one relationship.
Those relationships have different foreign keys: The original one-to-many relationship has a separate foreign key in the Charge table (probably named Type_RowId or similar). Your new relationship has the foreign key at the other side in table Type and it is the primary key RowId. The Charges you are loading together with the Schedule probably don't have any related Type with the same primary key, hence no Type is loaded.
If you actually want to reproduce the old (one-to-many) relationship with just a navigation property at the other side you must add a collection to Type instead of a single reference:
public class Type
{
[Key, DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public Guid RowId { get; set; }
public string TypeName { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Charge> Charges { get; set; }
}
Are you sure that you want to put ForeignKey on RowId, I think you may want to define some relationship like this
public class Type
{
[Key, DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public Guid RowId { get; set; }
public string TypeName { get; set; }
public int ChargeId { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("ChargeId")]
public virtual Charge Charge { get; set; }
}
Related
Many times I have a general purpose entity that other entities contain a collection of. I don't want to have a new collection entity for each parent entity type that needs it but would like to re-use a single general purpose entity. For performance reasons, I also don't want to explicitly define many-to-many relationships as in this answer. The simplest example would be a collection of strings.
public class MyString
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Value { get; set; }
}
public class MyEntity
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public virtual List<MyString> { get; set; }
}
public class MyOtherString
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Value { get; set; }
}
public class MyOtherEntity
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public virtual List<MyOtherString> { get; set; }
}
I'd really like to combine MyString and MyOtherString into a single entity:
public class GeneralPurposeString
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Value { get; set; }
}
public class MyEntity
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public virtual List<GeneralPurposeString> { get; set; }
}
public class MyOtherEntity
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public virtual List<GeneralPurposeString> { get; set; }
}
Except now I'm going to have an additional foreign key in GeneralPurposeString for every entity that contains a collection of GeneralPurposeString.
What I would like would be a way to have an additional parent category column on the GeneralPurposeString table (but not the entity) that would specify which entity the item belongs to. I use Guid for primary keys, so the tables could look something like this:
CREATE TABLE [GeneralPurposeString]
(
[Id] uniqueidentifier NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT PK_GeneralPurposeString PRIMARY KEY,
[ParentEntityCategory] uniqueidentifier NOT NULL,
[ParentEntityId] uniqueidentifier NOT NULL,
[Value] nvarchar(MAX)
)
And some how in Code First to specify that MyEntity has a certain category, and that it's collection of GeneralPurposeString uses that category, and MyOtherEntity uses another category (Guid) for it's collections of GeneralPurposeString.
The key would be that GeneralPurposeString could be a collection in any other entity and that loading the parent entity and including the collection would automatically load without having to explicitly specify the category.
The purposes for all of this are
Allow .NET code to have GeneralPurposeString code that wasn't replicated everywhere (actual utility or business logic code). This can probably also be accomplished through inheritance and explicit mapping but that would still leave multiple tables in the database (see #2).
Have only one table in the database for GeneralPurposeString. This is more of a tidiness issue. Performance would possibly be better with multiple tables, but indexing on ParentEntityCategory/ParentEntityId and covering Value should be good performance for lookups.
Not have to explicitly code this relationship and the lookups everywhere it's needed.
I'm thinking if I can get over #2 and be OK with a separate table behind the scenes and implementing a derived class, that will be the simplest route to go.
So just:
public class GeneralPurposeString
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Value { get; set; }
}
// It's just a GeneralPurposeString with a fancy MyEntity membership pin
public class MyEntityString: GeneralPurposeString {}
public class MyEntity
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public virtual List<MyEntityString> Strings { get; set; }
}
// Cool GeneralPurposeStrings belong to MyOtherEntity
public class MyOtherEntityString: GeneralPurposeString {}
public class MyOtherEntity
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public virtual List<MyOtherEntityString> Strings { get; set; }
}
public class MyContext: DbContext
{
public DbSet<MyEntity> MyEntities { get; set; }
public DbSet<MyOtherEntity> MyOtherEntities { get; set; }
}
I don't have to add the derived classes to the DbContext and the tables get named with the plural of the derived class by default, so it's actually pretty straight forward.
My previous train of thought with the Parent Category would require additional coding/annotation even if EF supported it. This uses purely convention and nothing extra needed in annotations or in OnModelCreating().
I'm not seeing any harm in extra tables at this point in time. I don't see a need (currently) to have all of the data in one table for reporting, but that really depends on the type of general purpose entity, so I may need to revisit this in the future, or I may just take the many-to-many route if I do need the data in one table.
And I can still have:
public static class GeneralPurposeStringExtensions
{
public static void SassThatHoopyFrood(this GeneralPurposeString s)
{
// do stuff
}
}
I have classes that look like this:
public class Signer
{
[Key, Column(Order = 0)]
public Guid EntityUUID { get; set; }
[Key, Column(Order = 1)]
public Guid SignerUUID { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("EntityUUID")]
public virtual User User { get; set; }
}
public class User
{
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public Guid? EntityUUID { get; set; }
public virtual List<Signer> Signers { get; set; }
}
When trying to create the migration for this, EF is trying to make the User.Id column the parent of the relationship with Signer, which fails because they are of different types. What I need to happen is have User.EntityUUID be the parent for the relationship, but I can't find anything that allows me to set the parent side of the relationship. I looked at InverseProperty attribute, but that doesn't seems to help my situation. Annotations would be my preferred fix. Any ideas?
EDIT:
A co-worker claims this isn't possible currently with EF, anyone able to confirm?
Found this, looks like it is coming in EF 7 but not currently available.
Alternate Keys in Entity Framework
I have this class structure:
public class Activity
{
[Key]
public long ActivityId { get; set; }
public string ActivityName { get; set; }
public virtual HashSet<ActivityLogMessage> ActivityLogMessages { get; set; }
public virtual HashSet<FileImportLogMessage> FileImportLogMessages { get; set; }
public virtual HashSet<RowImportLogMessage> RowImportLogMessages { get; set; }
}
public abstract class LogMessage
{
[Required]
public string Message { get; set; }
public DateTimeOffset CreateDate { get; set; }
[Required]
public long ActivityId { get; set; }
public virtual Activity Activity { get; set; }
}
public class ActivityLogMessage : LogMessage
{
public long ActivityLogMessageId { get; set; }
}
public class FileImportLogMessage : ActivityLogMessage
{
public long? StageFileId { get; set; }
}
public class RowImportLogMessage : FileImportLogMessage
{
public long? StageFileRowId { get; set; }
}
Which gives me this, model
Each Message (Activity, File or Row) must have be associated with an Activity. Why does the 2nd and 3rd level not have the same cardinality as ActivityLogMessage ? My attempts at describing the foreign key relationship (fluent via modelbuilder) have also failed.
This is really an academic exercise for me to really understand how EF is mapping to relational, and this confuses me.
Regards,
Richard
EF infers a pair of navigation properties Activity.ActivityLogMessages and ActivityLogMessage.Activity with a foreign key property ActivityLogMessage.ActivityId which is not nullable, hence the relationships is defined as required.
The other two relationships are infered from the collections Activity.FileImportLogMessages and Activity.RowImportLogMessages. They neither have an inverse navigation property on the other side nor a foreign key property which will - by default - lead to optional relationships.
You possibly expect that LogMessage.Activity and LogMessage.ActivityId is used as inverse property for all three collections. But it does not work this way. EF cannot use the same navigation property in multiple relationships. Also your current model means that RowImportLogMessage for example has three relationships to Activity, not only one.
I believe you would be closer to what you want if you remove the collections:
public virtual HashSet<FileImportLogMessage> FileImportLogMessages { get; set; }
public virtual HashSet<RowImportLogMessage> RowImportLogMessages { get; set; }
You can still filter the remaining ActivityLogMessages by the derived types (for example in not mapped properties that have only a getter):
var fileImportLogMessages = ActivityLogMessages.OfType<FileImportLogMessage>();
// fileImportLogMessages will also contain entities of type RowImportLogMessage
var rowImportLogMessage = ActivityLogMessages.OfType<RowImportLogMessage>();
I am getting Error when trying to run this code.
Unable to determine the principal end of an association between the
types 'AddressBook.DAL.Models.User' and 'AddressBook.DAL.Models.User'.
The principal end of this association must be explicitly configured
using either the relationship fluent API or data annotations.
The objective is that i am creating baseClass that has commonfield for all the tables.
IF i don't use base class everything works fine.
namespace AddressBook.DAL.Models
{
public class BaseTable
{
[Required]
public DateTime DateCreated { get; set; }
[Required]
public DateTime DateLastUpdatedOn { get; set; }
[Required]
public virtual int CreatedByUserId { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("CreatedByUserId")]
public virtual User CreatedByUser { get; set; }
[Required]
public virtual int UpdatedByUserId { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("UpdatedByUserId")]
public virtual User UpdatedByUser { get; set; }
[Required]
public RowStatus RowStatus { get; set; }
}
public enum RowStatus
{
NewlyCreated,
Modified,
Deleted
}
}
namespace AddressBook.DAL.Models
{
public class User : BaseTable
{
[Key]
public int UserID { get; set; }
public string UserName { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public string MiddleName { get; set; }
public string Password { get; set; }
}
}
You need to provide mapping information to EF. The following article describes code-first strategies for different EF entity inheritance models (table-per-type, table-per-hierarchy, etc.). Not all the scenarios are directly what you are doing here, but pay attention to the mapping code because that's what you need to consider (and it's good info in case you want to use inheritance for other scenarios). Note that inheritance does have limitations and costs when it comes to ORMs, particularly with polymorphic associations (which makes the TPC scenario somewhat difficult to manage). http://weblogs.asp.net/manavi/archive/2010/12/24/inheritance-mapping-strategies-with-entity-framework-code-first-ctp5-part-1-table-per-hierarchy-tph.aspx
The other way EF can handle this kind of scenario is by aggregating a complex type into a "fake" compositional relationship. In other words, even though your audit fields are part of some transactional entity table, you can split them out into a common complex type which can be associated to any other entity that contains those same fields. The difference here is that you'd actually be encapsulting those fields into another type. So for example, if you moved your audit fields into an "Audit" complext type, you would have something like:
User.Audit.DateCreated
instead of
User.DateCreated
In any case, you still need to provide the appropriate mapping information.
This article here explains how to do this: http://weblogs.asp.net/manavi/archive/2010/12/11/entity-association-mapping-with-code-first-part-1-one-to-one-associations.aspx
I'm currently getting the following error when trying to create an one to one relationship using Code First:
System.Data.Edm.EdmAssociationEnd: : Multiplicity is not valid in Role 'C001_Holding_Teste_C001_Holding_Source' in relationship 'C001_Holding_Teste_C001_Holding'. Because the Dependent Role refers to the key properties, the upper bound of the multiplicity of the Dependent Role must be 1.
My entity definitions are the following:
[Table("C001_Holding", Schema = "Cad")]
public partial class C001_Holding
{
[Key]
[DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public int C001_Id { get; set; }
[MaxLength(16)]
public string C001_Codigo { get; set; }
[MaxLength(100)]
public string C001_Descricao { get; set; }
}
public class C001_Holding_Test
{
[Key]
public int C001_Id { get; set; }
[MaxLength(100)]
public string C001_TestInfo { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("C001_Id")]
public virtual C001_Holding C001_Holding { get; set; }
}
I didn't want to use Fluent to create these relationships, does anyone knows why this is happening?
Tks.
It is possible to place the ForeignKey attribute either on a navigation property and then specify the name of the property you want to have as the foreign key (that's what you did). Or you can place it on the foreign key property and then specify the name of the navigation property which represents the relationship. This would look like:
public class C001_Holding_Test
{
[Key]
[ForeignKey("C001_Holding")]
public int C001_Id { get; set; }
[MaxLength(100)]
public string C001_TestInfo { get; set; }
public virtual C001_Holding C001_Holding { get; set; }
}
For some reason this second option works while the first throws an error. (It feels like a bug to me because both options should represent the same relationship. Or there is actually a semantic difference which I don't see...)