Here's what I'd like to do:
var myCustomer = new Customer();
myCustomer.Name = "Bob";
myCustomer.HasAJob = true;
myCustomer.LikesPonies = false;
Then I'd like to pass it into an update method:
public UpdateCustomer(Customer cust)
{
using(var context = dbcontext())
{
var dbCust = context.Customers.FirstOrDefault(c => c.Name == cust.Name);
if(dbCust != null)
{
// Apply values from cust here so I don't have to do this:
dbCust.HasAJob = cust.HasAJob;
dbCust.LikesPonies = cust.LikesPonies
}
context.SaveChanges();
}
}
The reason for this is I'm working in multiple different parts of my application, and/or across DLLs. Is this possible?
EDIT: Found this question to be immensely useful:
Update Row if it Exists Else Insert Logic with Entity Framework
If you are sure that the entity is in the database and you have key you would just Attach the object you have to the context. Note that attached entities are by default in Unchanged state as the assumption is that all the values of properties are the same as in the database. If this is not the case (i.e. values are different) you need to change the state of the entity to modified. Take a look at this blog post: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2011/01/29/using-dbcontext-in-ef-feature-ctp5-part-4-add-attach-and-entity-states.aspx it describes several sceanrios including the one you are asking about.
Related
I am writing a web application, such that I get different objects back from the web that need to be either updated or added to the database. On top of this, I need to check that the owner is not modified. Since a hacker could potentially get an account and send an update to modify the foreign key to the user model. I don't want to have to manually code all of these methods, instead I want to make a simple generic call.
Maybe something as simple as this
ctx.OrderLines.AddOrUpdateSet(order.OrderLines, a => a.Order)
Based on old persisted records that have a foreign key to Order, and on the new incoming records.
Delete old records that are not on the new records list.
Add new records that are not on the old records list.
Update new records that exist on both lists.
ctx.Entry(orderLine).State=EntityState.Deleted;
...
ctx.Entry(orderLine).State=EntityState.Added;
...
ctx.Entry(orderLine).State=EntityState.Modified;
This gets a bit complicated when the old record is loaded to verify that ownership did not change. I get an error if I don't do.
oldorder.OrderLines.remove(oldOrderLine); //for deletes
oldorder.OrderLines.add(oldOrderLine); //for adds
ctx.Entry(header).CurrentValues.SetValues(header); //for modifications
With Entity Framework 5 there is a new extension function called AddOrUpdate. And there was a very interesting (please read) blog entry on how to create this method before it was added.
I'm not sure if this is too much to ask as a question in StackOverflow, any clues on how to approach the problem may be sufficient. Here are my thoughts so far:
a) leverage AddOrUpdate for some of the functionality.
b) create a secondary context hoping to avoid loading order into the context and avoid extra calls.
c) Set the state of all the saved objects to initially deleted.
Since you have linked to this question from my own question, I thought I'd throw in some newly-aquired experience with Entity Framework for me.
To achieve a common save method in my generic repository with Entity Framework, I do this. (Please note that the Context is a member of my repository, as I am implementing the Unit of Work pattern as well)
public class EFRepository<TEntity> : IRepository<TEntity> where TEntity : class
{
internal readonly AwesomeContext Context;
internal readonly DbSet<TEntity> DbSet;
public EFRepository(AwesomeContext context)
{
if (context == null) throw new ArgumentNullException("context");
Context = context;
DbSet = context.Set<TEntity>();
}
// Rest of implementation removed for brevity
public void Save(TEntity entity)
{
var entry = Context.Entry(entity);
if (entry.State == EntityState.Detached)
DbSet.Add(entity);
else entry.State = EntityState.Modified;
}
}
Honestly, I can't tell you why this works, because I just kept changing the state conditions - however I do have unit (integration) tests to prove that it works. Hopefully someone more into EF than myself can shed some light on this.
Regarding the "cascading updates", I was curious myself as if it would work using the Unit of Work pattern (my question I linked to was when I did not know it existed, and my repositories would basically create a unit of work whenever I wanted to save/get/delete, which is bad), so I threw in a test case in a simple relational DB. Here is a diagram to give you an idea.
IMPORTANT In order for test case number 2 to work, you need to make your POCO reference properties virtual, in order for EF to provide lazy loading.
The repository implementation is just derived from the generic EFRepository<TEntity> as shown above, so I'll leave out that implementation.
These are my test cases, both pass.
public class EFResourceGroupFacts
{
[Fact]
public void Saving_new_resource_will_cascade_properly()
{
// Recreate a fresh database and add some dummy data.
SetupTestCase();
using (var ctx = new LocalizationContext("Localization.CascadeTest"))
{
var cultureRepo = new EFCultureRepository(ctx);
var resourceRepo = new EFResourceRepository(cultureRepo, ctx);
var existingCulture = cultureRepo.Get(1); // First and only culture.
var groupToAdd = new ResourceGroup("Added Group");
var resourceToAdd = new Resource(existingCulture,"New Resource", "Resource to add to existing group.",groupToAdd);
// Verify we got a single resource group.
Assert.Equal(1,ctx.ResourceGroups.Count());
// Saving the resource should also add the group.
resourceRepo.Save(resourceToAdd);
ctx.SaveChanges();
// Verify the group was added without explicitly saving it.
Assert.Equal(2, ctx.ResourceGroups.Count());
}
// try creating a new Unit of Work to really verify it has been persisted..
using (var ctx = new LocalizationContext("Localization.CascadeTest"))
{
Assert.DoesNotThrow(() => ctx.ResourceGroups.First(rg => rg.Name == "Added Group"));
}
}
[Fact]
public void Changing_existing_resources_group_saves_properly()
{
SetupTestCase();
using (var ctx = new LocalizationContext("Localization.CascadeTest"))
{
ctx.Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = true;
var cultureRepo = new EFCultureRepository(ctx);
var resourceRepo = new EFResourceRepository(cultureRepo, ctx);
// This resource already has a group.
var existingResource = resourceRepo.Get(2);
Assert.NotNull(existingResource.ResourceGroup); // IMPORTANT: Property must be virtual!
// Verify there is only one resource group in the datastore.
Assert.Equal(1,ctx.ResourceGroups.Count());
existingResource.ResourceGroup = new ResourceGroup("I am implicitly added to the database. How cool is that?");
// Make sure there are 2 resources in the datastore before saving.
Assert.Equal(2, ctx.Resources.Count());
resourceRepo.Save(existingResource);
ctx.SaveChanges();
// Make sure there are STILL only 2 resources in the datastore AFTER saving.
Assert.Equal(2, ctx.Resources.Count());
// Make sure the new group was added.
Assert.Equal(2,ctx.ResourceGroups.Count());
// Refetch from store, verify relationship.
existingResource = resourceRepo.Get(2);
Assert.Equal(2,existingResource.ResourceGroup.Id);
// let's change the group to an existing group
existingResource.ResourceGroup = ctx.ResourceGroups.First();
resourceRepo.Save(existingResource);
ctx.SaveChanges();
// Assert no change in groups.
Assert.Equal(2, ctx.ResourceGroups.Count());
// Refetch from store, verify relationship.
existingResource = resourceRepo.Get(2);
Assert.Equal(1, existingResource.ResourceGroup.Id);
}
}
private void SetupTestCase()
{
// Delete everything first. Database.SetInitializer does not work very well for me.
using (var ctx = new LocalizationContext("Localization.CascadeTest"))
{
ctx.Database.Delete();
ctx.Database.Create();
var culture = new Culture("en-US", "English");
var resourceGroup = new ResourceGroup("Existing Group");
var resource = new Resource(culture, "Existing Resource 1",
"This resource will already exist when starting the test. Initially it has no group.");
var resourceWithGroup = new Resource(culture, "Exising Resource 2",
"Same for this resource, except it has a group.",resourceGroup);
ctx.Cultures.Add(culture);
ctx.ResourceGroups.Add(resourceGroup);
ctx.Resources.Add(resource);
ctx.Resources.Add(resourceWithGroup);
ctx.SaveChanges();
}
}
}
It was interesting to learn this, as I was not sure if it would work.
After working on this for a while I found an opensource project called GraphDiff here is it's blog entry 'introducing graphdiff for entity framework code first – allowing automated updates of a graph of detached entities'. I only began using it but it looks impressive. And it does solve the problem of issuing update/delete/insert for Many to One relationships. It actually generalizes the problem to graphs and allows arbitrary nesting.
Here is the generic method I concocted. It does use AddOrUpdate from the System.Data.Entity.Migrations namespace. Which may be reloading records from the db, I'll be checking on that later. The usage is
ctx.OrderLines.AddOrUpdateSet(l => l.orderId == neworder.Id,
l => l.Id, order.orderLines);
Here is the code:
public static class UpdateExtensions
{
public static void AddOrUpdateSet<TEntity>(this IDbSet<TEntity> set, Expression<Func<TEntity, bool>> predicate,
Func<TEntity, int> selector, IEnumerable<TEntity> newRecords) where TEntity : class
{
List<TEntity> oldRecords = set.Where(predicate).ToList();
IEnumerable<int> keys = newRecords.Select(selector);
foreach (TEntity newRec in newRecords)
set.AddOrUpdate(newRec);
oldRecords.FindAll(old => !keys.Contains(selector(old))).ForEach(detail => set.Remove(detail));
}
}
I want to use EF DbContext/POCO entities in a detached manner, i.e. retrieve a hierarchy of entities from my business tier, make some changes, then send the entire hierarchy back to the business tier to persist back to the database. Each BLL call uses a different instance of the DbContext. To test this I wrote some code to simulate such an environment.
First I retrieve a Customer plus related Orders and OrderLines:-
Customer customer;
using (var context = new TestContext())
{
customer = context.Customers.Include("Orders.OrderLines").SingleOrDefault(o => o.Id == 1);
}
Next I add a new Order with two OrderLines:-
var newOrder = new Order { OrderDate = DateTime.Now, OrderDescription = "Test" };
newOrder.OrderLines.Add(new OrderLine { ProductName = "foo", Order = newOrder, OrderId = newOrder.Id });
newOrder.OrderLines.Add(new OrderLine { ProductName = "bar", Order = newOrder, OrderId = newOrder.Id });
customer.Orders.Add(newOrder);
newOrder.Customer = customer;
newOrder.CustomerId = customer.Id;
Finally I persist the changes (using a new context):-
using (var context = new TestContext())
{
context.Customers.Attach(customer);
context.SaveChanges();
}
I realise this last part is incomplete, as no doubt I'll need to change the state of the new entities before calling SaveChanges(). Do I Add or Attach the customer? Which entities states will I have to change?
Before I can get to this stage, running the above code throws an Exception:
An object with the same key already exists in the ObjectStateManager.
It seems to stem from not explicitly setting the ID of the two OrderLine entities, so both default to 0. I thought it was fine to do this as EF would handle things automatically. Am I doing something wrong?
Also, working in this "detached" manner, there seems to be an lot of work required to set up the relationships - I have to add the new order entity to the customer.Orders collection, set the new order's Customer property, and its CustomerId property. Is this the correct approach or is there a simpler way?
Would I be better off looking at self-tracking entities? I'd read somewhere that they are being deprecated, or at least being discouraged in favour of POCOs.
You basically have 2 options:
A) Optimistic.
You can proceed pretty close to the way you're proceeding now, and just attach everything as Modified and hope. The code you're looking for instead of .Attach() is:
context.Entry(customer).State = EntityState.Modified;
Definitely not intuitive. This weird looking call attaches the detached (or newly constructed by you) object, as Modified. Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2011/01/29/using-dbcontext-in-ef-feature-ctp5-part-4-add-attach-and-entity-states.aspx
If you're unsure whether an object has been added or modified you can use the last segment's example:
context.Entry(customer).State = customer.Id == 0 ?
EntityState.Added :
EntityState.Modified;
You need to take these actions on all of the objects being added/modified, so if this object is complex and has other objects that need to be updated in the DB via FK relationships, you need to set their EntityState as well.
Depending on your scenario you can make these kinds of don't-care writes cheaper by using a different Context variation:
public class MyDb : DbContext
{
. . .
public static MyDb CheapWrites()
{
var db = new MyDb();
db.Configuration.AutoDetectChangesEnabled = false;
db.Configuration.ValidateOnSaveEnabled = false;
return db;
}
}
using(var db = MyDb.CheapWrites())
{
db.Entry(customer).State = customer.Id == 0 ?
EntityState.Added :
EntityState.Modified;
db.SaveChanges();
}
You're basically just disabling some extra calls EF makes on your behalf that you're ignoring the results of anyway.
B) Pessimistic. You can actually query the DB to verify the data hasn't changed/been added since you last picked it up, then update it if it's safe.
var existing = db.Customers.Find(customer.Id);
// Some logic here to decide whether updating is a good idea, like
// verifying selected values haven't changed, then
db.Entry(existing).CurrentValues.SetValues(customer);
I have this entity, want to update using entityframework
EmployeeModel employee = new EmployeeModel
{
Id = 1000, //This one must
FirstName = modifiedValue,
Email = modifiedValue,
LastName = originalValue,
Phone = originalValue
};
Code to update
_db.ObjectStateManager.ChangeObjectState(employee, EntityState.Modified);
_db.SaveChanges();
This is the SQL statement got once updated
Update Employee set Id=1138,FirstName='modifiedValue',Email='modifiedValue',LastName= 'OriginalValue',phone='originalValue' where Id=1138
But I am expecting this
Update Employee set FirstName='modifiedValue', Email='modifiedValue' where Id=1138.
I dont know what I am missing here. Please let me know.
This problem is common when dealing with DTOs. An employee entity is fetched from the database, mapped to a DTO and sent over the wire. The client then modifies this DTO and sends it back to the server.
When you touch (set) a property on an EF entity, EF will assume that the value has been changed. Even if the old value and the new value are exactly the same.
The same problem occurs when you map the DTO to a new Entity and attach it to EF and updating its status to 'Modified'.
Using AutoMapper:
// This will result in the full update statement
var employee = AutoMapper.Mapper.Map<EmployeeDto, Employee>(dto);
// This will result in a smaller update statement (only actual changes)
var employee = dbContext.Employees.Find(dto.Id);
AutoMapper.Mapper.Map(dto, employee);
Or, manually (I would avoid doing this, but just for the sake of completeness):
// This will result in a smaller update statement (only actual changes)
var employee = dbContext.Employees.Find(dto.Id);
if (employee.Email != dto.Email )
employee.Email = dto.Email;
There are probably some other ways for dealing with this problem... but using AutoMapper together with Entity Framework correctly is definitely one of the easiest ways.
This is the solution I got
var entity = _db.CreateObjectSet<Employee>();
entity.Detach(employee);
entity.Attach(employee);
foreach (string modifiedPro in employeeModel.ModifiedProperties){
_db.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntry(employee).SetModifiedProperty(modifiedPro);}
_db.SaveChanges();
Only modified values in the sql update statement
Update Employee set FirstName='modifiedValue', Email='modifiedValue' where Id=1138.
If anybody knows better answer than this, Please post your suggestions
You can try this way
public update(Person model)
{
// Here model is model return from form on post
var oldobj = db.Person.where(x=>x.ID = model.ID).SingleOrDefault();
var UpdatedObj = (Person) Entity.CheckUpdateObject(oldobj, model);
db.Entry(oldobj).CurrentValues.SetValues(UpdatedObj);
}
public static object CheckUpdateObject(object originalObj, object updateObj)
{
foreach (var property in updateObj.GetType().GetProperties())
{
if (property.GetValue(updateObj, null) == null)
{
property.SetValue(updateObj,originalObj.GetType().GetProperty(property.Name)
.GetValue(originalObj, null));
}
}
return updateObj;
}
When insert/updating an entity I need to log all the properties that have changed.
Lets take 2 tables Customer and Address. A customer can have many addresses.
Task:
Write to the Audit Table all the properties that have changed?
what is the way to write an update method if you like that does just that.
I have seen that you can use the following:
ObjectStateEntry entry = ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntry(entity);
var changes= entry.GetModifiedProperties().
Not sure how you actually write the method though the following is an half attempt:
can you give me few pointers or help me with the code?
private bool UpdateCustomer(Customer modifiedCustomerDto)
{
using (var ctx = new MyContext())
{
var oldCustomer = ctx.Customers.Where(xx => xx.CustomerId == modifiedCustomerDto.id).Single();
oldCustomer.Name = modifiedCustomerDto.Name;
oldCustomer.Surname = modifiedCustomerDto.Surname;
foreach (var oldAddress in oldCustomer.Addresses)
{
//if it's a new Address add it
//else updateit
//Write to the audit table all the properties that have changed.
}
//Get Modified properties and write to the auditlog
ctx.SaveChanges();
}
}
Take a look at this post dealing with the SavingChanges event.
You can check all properties of the object being updated in this event and log them using your custom code.
It seems to me that I have to retrieve an object before I delete it with entity framework like below
var customer = context.Customers.First(c => c.Id == 1);
context.DeleteObject(customer);
context.Savechanges();
So I need to hit database twice. Is there a easier way?
In Entity Framework 6 the delete action is Remove. Here is an example
Customer customer = new Customer () { Id = id };
context.Customers.Attach(customer);
context.Customers.Remove(customer);
context.SaveChanges();
The same as #Nix with a small change to be strongly typed:
If you don't want to query for it just create an entity, and then delete it.
Customer customer = new Customer () { Id = id };
context.Customers.Attach(customer);
context.Customers.DeleteObject(customer);
context.SaveChanges();
Similar question here.
With Entity Framework there is EntityFramework-Plus (extensions library).
Available on NuGet. Then you can write something like:
// DELETE all users which has been inactive for 2 years
ctx.Users.Where(x => x.LastLoginDate < DateTime.Now.AddYears(-2))
.Delete();
It is also useful for bulk deletes.
If you dont want to query for it just create an entity, and then delete it.
Customer customer = new Customer() { Id = 1 } ;
context.AttachTo("Customers", customer);
context.DeleteObject(customer);
context.Savechanges();
I am using the following code in one of my projects:
using (var _context = new DBContext(new DbContextOptions<DBContext>()))
{
try
{
_context.MyItems.Remove(new MyItem() { MyItemId = id });
await _context.SaveChangesAsync();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
if (!_context.MyItems.Any(i => i.MyItemId == id))
{
return NotFound();
}
else
{
throw ex;
}
}
}
This way, it will query the database twice only if an exception occurs when trying to remove the item with the specified ID. Then if the item is not found, it returns a meaningful message; otherwise, it just throws the exception back (you can handle this in a way more fit to your case using different catch blocks for different exception types, add more custom checks using if blocks etc.).
[I am using this code in a MVC .Net Core/.Net Core project with Entity Framework Core.]
This answer is actually taken from Scott Allen's course titled ASP.NET MVC 5 Fundamentals. I thought I'd share because I think it is slightly simpler and more intuitive than any of the answers here already. Also note according to Scott Allen and other trainings I've done, find method is an optimized way to retrieve a resource from database that can use caching if it already has been retrieved. In this code, collection refers to a DBSet of objects. Object can be any generic object type.
var object = context.collection.Find(id);
context.collection.Remove(object);
context.SaveChanges();
dwkd's answer mostly worked for me in Entity Framework core, except when I saw this exception:
InvalidOperationException: The instance of entity type 'Customer' cannot
be tracked because another instance with the same key value for {'Id'}
is already being tracked. When attaching existing entities, ensure
that only one entity instance with a given key value is attached.
Consider using 'DbContextOptionsBuilder.EnableSensitiveDataLogging' to
see the conflicting key values.
To avoid the exception, I updated the code:
Customer customer = context.Customers.Local.First(c => c.Id == id);
if (customer == null) {
customer = new Customer () { Id = id };
context.Customers.Attach(customer);
}
context.Customers.Remove(customer);
context.SaveChanges();
A smaller version (when compared to previous ones):
var customer = context.Find(id);
context.Delete(customer);
context.SaveChanges();
In EF Core, if you don't care if the object exists or not, and you just care that it will not be in the DB, the simplest would be:
context.Remove(new Customer(Id: id)); // adds the object in "Deleted" state
context.SaveChanges(); // commits the removal
You don't really need Attach() - it adds the object to the change tracker in the Unchanged state and Remove() adds the object to the tracker in the Deleted state. The most important thing, however, is that you do only one roundtrip to the backend.
Raw sql query is fastest way I suppose
public void DeleteCustomer(int id)
{
using (var context = new Context())
{
const string query = "DELETE FROM [dbo].[Customers] WHERE [id]={0}";
var rows = context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(query,id);
// rows >= 1 - count of deleted rows,
// rows = 0 - nothing to delete.
}
}
From official documentation (and the most efficient one I have found so far):
Student studentToDelete = new Student() { ID = id };
_context.Entry(studentToDelete).State = EntityState.Deleted;
await _context.SaveChangesAsync();
Easier and more understandable version.
var customer = context.Find<Customer>(id);
context.Remove(customer);
context.SaveChanges();
Since Entity Framework Core 7 you can use this:
await context.Customers.Where(c => c.Id == 1).ExecuteDeleteAsync();