I am building a ASP.NET MVC 4 app that will allow users to upload a lot of images to the server. With each image certain entities will be associated, like the Product entity will be associated with the product images and the Category entity with the category images.
I am making a table in my schema to keep a record of all the uploaded files with a string 'Ref' which I will parse whenever the user wants to do an operation with the file, like deleting the file. That way when the user wants to delete the file I will simple mark the file in the schema for deletion and once a day I can 'sanitize' the server's uploaded files by deleting all the marked files in bulk.
For example a file image.jpg is uploaded as a product image, i will have in the ref tag image productID 4 which indicates this is an image for a product with productID 4.
Is this the right way to implement handling of uploaded files or is there a better way to do it? Is this the right way to 'reference' the other entities associated with this file?
Here is my codefirst entity :
public class UploadedFile
{
[Key]
public int ID { get; set; }
public string RelativePath { get; set; }
public string AbsolutePath { get; set; }
public string Ref { get; set; }
public DateTime UploadedOn { get; set; }
public bool IsMarkedForDeletion { get; set; }
public bool IsImage { get; set; }
}
Is there a way to declare certain public properties to be automagically set when other properties are set? For example I would like to add ImageWidth & ImageHeight property which are set automatically if the uploaded file type is an image (i.e. whenever I set IsImage = true)
It is fine to use a Ref column, however it would be even more beneficial to have an additional column specifying the type of the reference, in your case it will be a product, but you might want to use the same table for references to different types of objects.
The logic of setting related properties shouldn't be part of the Model but rather the logic of the service that sets the IsImage property to true. So simply set other related properties there.
Related
Hi my Entity is ParameterDetail as follows:
public class ParameterDetail
{
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
[NotMapped]
public string Description { get; set; }
//..other columns removed for brevity
public int LookupValueId { get; set; }
}
I call my stored procedure and load the results as follows...
List<ParameterDetail> paramDetails = this.ParameterDetails.FromSqlRaw("EXEC dbo.GE_GetStartParameter #GuidelineName={0}", guidelineName).ToList();
Now this all is working fine but now I have to call a slightly different procedure which does not have LookupValueId..
List<ParameterDetail> paramDetails =this.ParameterDetails.FromSqlRaw("EXEC dbo.GetParameterDetails #ParameterId={0}", nextParam).ToList();
I don't want to add another EntityModel just for this one column....
Can i use Mapped property (Data Annotation) at runtime somehow? Or could there be any other solution?
Can i use Mapped property (Data Annotation) at runtime somehow? Or could there be any other solution?
Not if you want EF to perform the mapping, at least not a good one. You can't change the attributes at runtime, but if you use Fluent configuration you could have two different DbContext subtypes that configure the same entity class differently. But that's not a very elegant solution.
You can always just execute the stored procedure with ADO.NET and map the data however you want.
Assuming this test model:
public class TestEntity
{
[DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
[Key]
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
When I generate a new instance of it, Id is 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000.
Saving such an instance in the database as a new row, results in a Guid being generated (which is different from the empty one).
However, if I provide a valid Guid in TestEntity.Id, the new row is created with the provided Guid instead of a newly computed one.
I would like this behavior to exists only when editing a row, not when creating it. This is to ensure a database-layer protection from attacks where a user normally shouldn't get to choose which data to input.
Off course this protection is present in other layers, but I want it in the database too. Is this possible? How can I tell EF to ignore model data when creating a new row?
DatabaseGeneratedOption.Computed descriptions says
the database generates a value when a row is inserted or updated
So clearely that's not an option. I don't want to change Id when updating a row. I only want to be sure no one can create a row and choose the Id.
I'd try to keep things simple. Make your set method protected, then you have two ways to generate Ids, You can generate it by yourself inside a constructor:
public class TestEntity
{
// no need to decorate with `DatabasGenerated`, since it won't be generated by database...
[Key]
public Guid Id { get; protected set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public TestEntity()
{
this.Id = Guid.NewGuid();
}
}
...or you can let the database generate it for you. At least for SQL Server, it will be able to generate for int and Guid as well:
public class TestEntity
{
[DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
[Key]
public Guid Id { get; protected set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
// no need to generate a Guid by yourself....
}
This will avoid people from setting a value to Id outside the class (therefore no one can choose a Guid for new rows, or modify from existing ones).
Of course, your team could use reflection to by-pass class definitions, but if that's the case, you need to have a talk with your team.
If you still want to make sure they won't cheat, then you'd have to do check before saving changes to database, maybe overriding SaveChanges() in your DbContext.
As a side note, for both int and Guid, values are not generated by Entity Framework. Decorating the property with [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)] will tell Entity Framework to generate a column with a default value coming from the own database provider.
I've seen this that suggest I can build different views based on user:
different json views for the same entity
However in asp web api, one uses a Model class, I can't just add new properties willy-nilly.
So, for example I may have uri:
http://host/api/products/id
Returning the model:
public class Product{
public string Code { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
}
But for another purpose I want to add more information, suppose this is expensive because it joins other data to build the model, or formats the data in a very specific way:
http://host/api/productsspecial/id
Returning the model:
public class ProductSpecial{
public string Code { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public decimal Price { get; set; } //assume expensive to look up
}
So obviously I have a way to do this, two different controllers, returning different views on the data. My question is, is this OK or is there a better way?
Anyway I could do this for example: http://host/api/products/id?includeprice=true and use that to return the alternative model? And is that a good idea?
I would suggest
GET /host/api/products/{id}?fields=code,description,price
You should avoid complicating your resource URL in the manner you describe. Every possible configuration of values would need a new name: "productsReallySpecial", etc.
The problem with ?includePrice=true is you then have a parameter for every variable you might want to make optional. Your documentation can list the default return values and the available return values.
I'm using Entity Framework Code First. The class i'm trying to create contains two collections (of the same type). I'm having problem recovering my respective collections.
My classes look like this:
public class Destination
{
public int DestinationId { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public List<Lodging> Lodgings { get; set; }
public List<Lodging> Lodgings2 { get; set; }
}
public class Lodging
{
public int LodgingId { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public Destination Destination { get; set; }
}
I created a new Destination, then I reopened (closed & opened) the database connection. When I retrieve the destination, my collections (dest.Lodgings and dest.Lodgings2) are null. How do I restore the respective collections? If my class only has one collection of a particular type, I could do the following:
var lodgings = context.Lodgings.Where(l => l.Destination.DestinationId == destId).ToList();
I can see that the relationships are maintained in the database schema (Destination_DestinationId1 and Destination_DestinationId2) but I don't seem to be able to get to them.
Any suggestion would be appreciated.
In addition to using Include (as you've discovered) (which loads the related data from the db at the same time the destination is retrieved) you can also retreive the lodgings after the fact. So if you query for the destination and then you want the lodgings, that's possible. One way is called explicit loading where you will use a Load method. The other is with lazy loading, which requires that your classes be set up a particular way and just the mere mention of the Lodgings property will trigger the call to the database to retrieve them.
there's a great blog post on the Ef team blog about the various ways to load related data with DbContext : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2011/01/31/using-dbcontext-in-ef-feature-ctp5-part-6-loading-related-entities.aspx
hth
Julie
Say I have Project and Task EF Code first classes
public class Project
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Task> Tasks { get; set; }
}
public class Task
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int ProjectId { get; set; }
public bool IsDeleted {get; set;}
public virtual Project Project { get; set; }
}
Say I have
public void SomeAction()
{
Project p= repository.GetById(1);
var tasks = p.Tasks;
//var tasks = p.Tasks.Where(t=>t.IsDeleted==false);
}
I would like that my Tasks property on the Project class will always perform that filter on IsDeleted and just return that subset ... to avoid having to write that condition all over the place...
Any recommendations?
Edit:
Im using EF Code First
Add a discriminator to your model in the OnModelCreating method
modelBuilder.Entity<TEntity>().Map(m => m.Requires("IsDeleted").HasValue(false));
Caveats
You can no longer load deleted items (unless you map IsDeleted true to another entity, then you may lose your automatic filtering)
The poco class cannot have the IsDeleted property (discriminators cannot be mapped)
because the IsDeleted cannot be mapped you need to run raw SQL to delete the entity in the first place.
EF Code first = NO WAY. Just one from long list of features which is available in EDMX and it is completely missing in code first. Mapped condition from EDMX does this but it is still problematic because it is hardcoded and cannot be changed (= you will never be able to load deleted entities even if you want to unless you use another EDMX). The solution would be implementation of global filters in EF but EF doesn't have anything like that despite the fact that old Linq-to-entities have them at least for relations (DataLoadOptions.AssociateWith).
This is much more painful in relations where you cannot use eager or lazy loading without loading deleted entities to your application as well and do filtering in your application's memory.
In the Model Designer, select your Task entity, and bring up the Mapping Details window. This should show you the database table your entity is mapped to, and all the columns. Just under where it says "Maps to [YourTable]" you should see an option <Add a Condition>. This should let you set a condition like what you're looking for.