I am using the the latest version of Entity Framework (4.2) and trying to implement interfaces for my Entities and for some reason, it isn't compiling. it is throwing an error "Cannot convert expression type ICollection<IOrder> to return type ICollection<Order>". if I don't use interfaces for the entities, then I don't get this error.
I have a separate project for interfaces (for repositories and services etc) and I need to pass the EF entities in those methods as parameters and I don't want to pass the actual entities in them, because that will require the interface project to have a dependency on the EF entities.
my goal is somewhat similar to the one mentioned in this post Can I abstract Entity Framework away from my Entities?
here is the sample. I just put a sample here, my actual entities are different, but the problem is same.
public interface IOrder
{
int OrderId { get; set; }
int CustomerId { get; set; }
ICustomer Customer { get; set; }
}
public class Order : IOrder
{
public int OrderId { get; set; }
public int CustomerId { get; set; }
ICustomer Customer { get; set; }
}
public interface ICustomer
{
int CustomerId { get; set; }
ICollection<IOrder> Orders { get; set; }
}
public class Customer : ICustomer
{
public int CustomerId { get; set; }
ICollection<IOrder> Orders { get; set; }
}
public class OrderMap : EntityTypeConfiguration<Order>
{
this.HasOptional(t => t.Customer)
.WithMany(t => t.Orders) //error comes from this line
.HasForeignKey(d => d.CustomerId);
}
Entity framework is not able to work with interfaces. Your navigation properties must use the real entity types (mapped classes).
"You can add your own partial class files to specify the interfaces to be implemented - and to provide any actual implementation methods you need" - as suggested here
Related
I am having problems figuring out the data annotations to map more than one 1:1 relationships so that EF Core 3.11.7 understands it and can build a migration.
I have a Person table and a Notes table.
There is a 0:M Notes relationship in Person. A person record can have 0 or more notes.
In the notes table is a CreatedBy field which is a Person. It also has a LastEditedBy field which is also a person. EF keeps bombing on how to construct the relationship for Note.CreatedBy. If this were non EF, both fields would be ints with the PersonID of the proper person record. How do it, preferabbly with Data Annotations, explain this to EF Core?
When I try to create a migration it fails and says:
System.InvalidOperationException: Unable to determine the relationship represented by navigation property 'Note.CreatedBy' of type 'Person'. Either manually configure the relationship, or ignore this property using the '[NotMapped]' attribute or by using 'EntityTypeBuilder.Ignore' in 'OnModelCreating'.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace VetReg.Domain.Model
{
public class Family
{
public int FamilyID { get; set; } = -1;
public string FamilyName { get; set; }
public List<Pet> Pets { get; set; } = new List<Pet>();
public List<PersonFamily> People { get; set; }
public int AddressID { get; set; } = -1;
public List<Note> Notes { get; set; }
}
public class Person
{
public int PersonID { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public DateTime? Birthdate { get; set; }
public string Password { get; set; }
public List<PersonFamily> Families { get; set; }
public List<Note> Notes { get; set; }
} // class People
public class Note
{
public int NoteID { get; set; }
public int CreatedByID { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("CreatedByID")]
public Person CreatedBy { get; set; }
public DateTime DateCreated { get; set; }
public int LastEditByID { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("LastEditByID")]
public Person LastEditBy { get; set; }
public DateTime? LastEditDate { get; set; }
public string NoteText { get; set; }
}
public class PersonFamily
{
public int PersonID { get; set; }
public int FamilyID { get; set; }
public Person Person { get; set; }
public Family Family { get; set; }
}
}
The question is (and this is what makes impossible to EF to automatically determine the relationships) what is the relation between Person.Notes and Note.CreatedBy / Note.LastEditBy - none probably? You've said there is 0:M relationship between Person and Note, but note that there are potentially 3 one-to-many relationships there - notes associated with person, notes created by person and notes edited by person, which potentially leads to 3 FKs to Person in Note.
Also note that none of the navigation properties is required, but when present they must be paired.
Assuming you want 3 relationships, i.e. there is no relation between Note.CreatedBy / Note.LastEditBy and Person.Notes, you need to tell EF that Note.CreatedBy and Note.LastEditBy do not have corresponding (a.k.a. inverse) navigation property in Person. This is not possible with data annotations. The only available data annotation for that purpose [InverseProperty(...)] does not accept empty/null string name, hence cannot be used for what is needed here.
Also there is another problem here which you will encounter after resolving the current, which also cannot be resolved with data annotations. Since you have multiple required (thus cascade delete by default) relationships from Person to Note, it creates the famous "cycles or multiple cascade paths" problem with SqlServer, and requires turning off at least one of the cascade delete.
With that being said, the model in question needs the following minimal fluent configuration:
modelBuilder.Entity<Note>()
.HasOne(e => e.CreatedBy)
.WithMany()
.OnDelete(DeleteBehavior.Restrict);
modelBuilder.Entity<Note>()
.HasOne(e => e.LastEditBy)
.WithMany()
.OnDelete(DeleteBehavior.Restrict);
The essential for the original issue are the HasOne / WithMany pairs. Once you do that, EF Core will automatically map the unmapped Person.Notes collection to a third optional relationship with no inverse navigation property and shadow FP property (and column) called "PersonId", i.e. the equivalent of
modelBuilder.Entity<Person>()
.HasMany(e => e.Notes)
.WithOne()
.HasForeignKey("PersonId");
Regarding the second issue with multiple cascade paths, instead of Restrict you can use any non cascading option or the newer ClientCascade. And it could be for just one of the relationships, as soon as it breaks the "cascade path" (apparently you can't break the cycle because it is demanded by the model).
Using a table-per-type inheritance model and Entity Framework Code First, I am trying to eager load a list of derived class. Please note that I can't change the model.
I have the following model (overly simplified)
public class Training
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public IList<Person> Persons { get; set; }
}
public abstract class Person
{
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
}
[Table("Students")]
public class Student : Person
{
public string StudentNumber { get; set; }
public IList<Training> Trainings { get; set; }
}
[Table("Instructors")]
public class Instructor : Person
{
public DateTime StartingDate { get; set; }
public IList<Training> Trainings { get; set; }
}
I want to query Training by name and eager load all the persons including the derived class (Student and Instructor). Back in April 2011, Tom Dykstra seemed to claim it wasn't possible.
The current version of the Entity Framework doesn't support eager loading for one-to-zero-or-one relationships when the navigation property is on the derived class of a TPH inheritance structure.
Has this changed? I am using EF5.
I don't see why ...
var list = context.Trainings.Include(t => t.Persons)
.Where(t => t.Name == someName)
.ToList();
... shouldn't work. EF should populate the Persons list with concrete Student and Instructor entities.
You neither have a "one-to-zero-or-one relationship" nor is your navigation property (Training.Persons) "on the derived class". So, I think the mentioned limitation does not apply to your model and query.
I'm new to Entity Framework and C#/.Net and trying to create a TPH inheritance model, I'm not sure if I should be or not, so if not, please advise,
Here's the model:
public abstract class Vote
{
public int VoteID { get; set; }
public int UserID { get; set; }
public bool Value { get; set; }
public DateTime DateCreated { get; set; }
public User User { get; set; }
}
public class ProjectVote_ : Vote
{
public int ProjectID { get; set; }
public virtual Project Project { get; set; }
}
public class CommentVote_ : Vote //There are three more like this, votes for different hings
{
public int CommentID { get; set; }
public virtual Comment Comment { get; set; }
}
Now the Project model (comment and model is similar)
public class Project
{
public int ProjectID { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Vote> Vote { get; set; }
}
What happens is that ICollection creates a database column Project_ProjectID as the foreign key in the Vote table (I think) instead of using the ProjectID I defined. How do I fix it or should I model it differently. If the fluent API is the way to fix it, I don't know how to do that.
In the end I want to be able to use one table to store 5 different types of votes.
When you have related entities you don't need to have a property to store the FK in your model. Entity framework knows that it needs to make a FK to the Project table in ProjectVote when it detects Project in your ProjectVote_ model. Same thing with User and UserId and Comment and CommentId. You don't need to have a property that stores the FK in your model.
You are getting the FK column with the name you don't like "Project_ProjectID" because Entity framework is detecting that it needs to create a FK for your navigation property "Project". It's using it's own naming convention to create the column hence "Project_ProjectID".
If you want to provide your own name for the column override OnModelCreating in your DBContext class and add this fluent mapping.
protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
modelBuilder.Entity<Project>()
.HasMany(p => p.Vote)
.HasRequired(v => v.Project) //or .WithOptional(v => v.Project)
.Map(m => m.MapKey("ProjectId")); //or any other name you want.
}
And for the future this is a helpful reference for how to use the Fluent API. For example here is some documentation on how to custimize TPH with fluent.
Hope that helps!
I'm producing a simple composite patterned entity model using EF4 w/ the code-first CTP feature:
public abstract partial class CacheEntity
{
[Key]public string Hash { get; set; }
public string Creator { get; set; }
public int EntityType { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Predecessor { get; set; }
public DateTime DateTimeCreated { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<CacheReference> References { get; set; }
}
public partial class CacheBlob : CacheEntity
{
public byte[] Content { get; set; }
}
public partial class CacheCollection : CacheEntity
{
public virtual ICollection<CacheEntity> Children { get; set; }
}
public class CacheReference
{
public string Hash { get; set; }
[Key]public string Reference { get; set; }
public virtual CacheEntity Entity { get; set; }
}
public class CacheEntities : DbContext
{
public DbSet<CacheEntity> Entities { get; set; }
public DbSet<CacheReference> References { get; set; }
}
Before I split out the primitive/collection derived classes it all worked nicely, but now I get this:
Unable to determine the principal end of the 'Cache.DataAccess.CacheEntity_References'
relationship. Multiple added entities may have the same primary key.
I figured that it may have been getting confused, so I thought I'd spell it out explicitly using the fluent interface, rather than the DataAnnotation attributes. Here's what I think defines the relationship properly:
protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
modelBuilder.Entity<CacheEntity>().HasKey(ce => ce.Hash);
modelBuilder.Entity<CacheEntity>().HasOptional(ce => ce.References).WithMany();
modelBuilder.Entity<CacheReference>().HasKey(ce => ce.Reference);
modelBuilder.Entity<CacheReference>().HasRequired(cr => cr.Entity).WithOptional();
}
But I must be wrong, because now I get this:
Entities in 'CacheEntities.CacheReferenceSet' participate in the
'CacheReference_Entity' relationship. 0 related 'Entity' were found. 1 'Entity' is expected.
Various other ways of using the fluent API yield different errors, but nothing succeeds, so I am beginning to wonder whether these need to be done differently when I am using inheritance.
Any clues, links, ideas, guidance would be very welcome.
using the MapHierarchy works for me:
protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder builder){
builder.Entity<CacheBlob>().HasKey(b=> b.Hash).MapHierarchy();
}
As an example.
Further reference : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/efdesign/archive/2009/10/12/code-only-further-enhancements.aspx
I typed this simplified example without the benefit of an IDE so forgive any syntax errors. When I try to automap this I get a FluentConfigurationException when I attempt to compile the mappings -
"Association references unmapped class
IEmployee."
I imagine if I were to resolve this I'd get a similar error when it encounters the reference to IEmployer as well. I'm not opposed to creating a ClassMap manually but I prefer AutoMapper doing it instead.
public interface IEmployer
{
int Id{ get; set; }
IList<IEmployee> Employees { get; set; }
}
public class Employer: IEmployer
{
public int Id{ get; set; }
public IList<IEmployer> Employees { get; set; }
public Employer()
{
Employees = new List<IEmployee>();
}
}
public interface IEmployee
{
int Id { get; set; }
IEmployer Employer { get; set; }
}
public class Employee: IEmployee
{
public int Id { get; set;}
public IEmployer Employer { get; set;}
public Employee(IEmployer employer)
{
Employer = employer;
}
}
I've tried using .IncludeBase<IEmployee>() but to no avail. It acts like I never called IncludeBase at all.
Is the only solution to either not use interfaces in my domain entities or fall back on a manually defined ClassMap?
Either option creates a significant problem with the way my application is designed. I ignored persistence until I had finished implementing all the features, a mistake I won't be repeating again :-(
It's not a restriction imposed by Fluent or its AutoMapper, but by NHibernate itself.
I therefore don't think you'd get there with the manual class map. You'll have to lose the interfaces in the property and list definitions. You can keep the interfaces, but mapped properties and collections must use the concrete types of which NHibernate knows.
public class PersonMap : ClassMap<Person>
{
public PersonMap()
{
Id(x => x.Id);
Map<Address>(x => x.Address); // Person.Address is of type IAddress implemented by Address
}
}