entity framework 4.0 multiple joins - entity-framework

Question

This is my real world example.
I have 4 tables:
Person
Plan
Coverage
CoveredMembers
Each person can have many plans, each of those plans can have many coverages. Each of those coverages can have many CoveredMembers.
I need a query that will apply a filter on Plan.PlanType == 1 and CoveredMembers.TermDate == null.
This query should bring back any person who has a medical type plan that is not terminated.
This SQL statement would do just that:
SELECT Person.*, Plans.*, Coverages.*, CoveredMembers.*
FROM Person P
INNER JOIN Plan PL ON P.PersonID = PL.PersonID
INNER JOIN Coverage C on PL.PlanID = C.PlanID
INNER JOIN CoveredMember CM on C.CoverageID = CM.CoverageID
WHERE CM.TermDate = NULL AND PL.PlanType = 1
I have figured out how to do this using anonymous types, but I sometimes need to update the data and save back to the database - and anonymous types are read only.
I was given a solution that did work using JOIN but it only brought back the persons (albeit filtered the way I needed). I can then loop through each person:
foreach (var person in persons) {
foreach (var plan in person.Plans{
//do stuff
}
}
But wouldn't that make a db call for each iteration of the loop? I have 500 persons with 3 unterminated medical plans each, so it would call the db 1500 times?
This is why I want to bring the whole data tree from Persons to CoveredMembers back in one shot. Is this not possible?

Answer 1

I believe this is accomplished in two parts:
Your query to determine the people you wish to have returned based on your criteria as discussed in this question previously: Entity framework. Need help filtering results
Properly setting the navigation properties for entities you want brought together to be eagerly loaded: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/jj574232.aspx
For example if your Person entity looks like:
public class Person {
public List<Plan> Plans {get; set;}
...
}
When returning data from the dbcontext you can also use explicit eager loading with the include option:
var people = context.People
.Include(p => p.Plans)
.ToList();
....
If these are nested - coverage is part of plan, etc (which it looks like, it goes something like):
var people = context.People
.Include(p => p.Plans.Select(pl=>pl.Coverage).Select(c=>c.CoveredMembers)))
.ToList();
....
I am making some assumptions about your data model here, and my code above probably needs a little tweaking.
EDIT:
I might need someone else to weigh in here, but I don't think you can add the where clause into an include like that (my example above leads you that way a bit by putting the include on the context object, instead return an IQueryable with your conditions set as solved in your first post (without a ToList() called on it) and then use the code you wrote above without the Where clauses:
From first post (you supplied different criteria in this one, but same concept)
var q = from q1 in dbContext.Parent
join q2 in dbContext.Children
on q1.key equals q2.fkey
join q3 in ........
where q4.col1 == 3000
select q1;
Then:
List<Person> people = q.Include(p => p.Plans
.Select(pl => pl.Coverages)
.Select(c => c.CoveredMembers).ToList();
Again, doing this without being able to troubleshoot - I am sure it would take me a few attempts to iron this one out too.