Starting to play around with EF4 and I notice there are several different ways to query the DB.
Currently I created an .EDMX with my tables/objects created.
In code when I use the Where method, it wants me to pass in a string for the 1st param, ESQL I'm guessing. What I want to use is lambda expressions. All the tutorials show this, but isn't how I'm setup for some reason.
new Entities().Users.Where();
Ah, you must include the namespace System.Linq to get the extension methods.
Assuming your user entity has a property called LastName, you would write something like this to get all users with the
Entities().Users.Where(u => u.LastName == "Hansen");
Related
I'm a newbie in developing in CRM, so I want to get some things clear. And you first you need to know the reason why you have to do something in order to fully understand it. So lets get to the question.
I know you have to do this when making a plugin:
var context = (IPluginExecutionContext)serviceProvider.GetService(typeof(IPluginExecutionContext));
if (context.InputParameters.Contains("Target") && context.InputParameters.["Target"] is Entity)
{
var entity = (Entity)context.InputParameters["Target"];
if(entity.LogicalName == "myEntity")
{
//Do something with your entity
}
}
Now, in the PluginRegistration Tool, you can set up that your plugin will be fired on the defined Message and which entities (and specific attributes from them) will be affected by it, besides other stuff.
I can see the validations are very useful when manipulating several entities with a single plugin.
Now, let's suppose you only are updating a single entity with your plugin. Why should I check if the entity that's on "Target" is the entity I want to work on, if I already know because I set it up for that entity in particular? What can an Entity be otherwise in that scenario?
Also, in what cases "Target" is NOT an Entity (in the current context)?
Thanks in advance, and sorry if this is a silly question.
See this answer: Is Target always an Entity or can it be EntityReference?
Per the SDK (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg309673.aspx):
Note that not all requests contain a Target property that is of type
Entity, so you have to look at each request or response. For example,
DeleteRequest has a Target property, but its type is
EntityReference.
The bottom line is that you need to look at the request (all plugin's fire on an OrganizationRequest) of which there are many derived types (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xrm.sdk.organizationrequest.aspx) to determine the type for the Target property.
As Nicknow said, the Input Parameters will change depending on the Message being executed.
You can get that information from the MSDN (every request will list the Input Parameters under the Properties section, for instance the CreateRequest) or using the ParameterBrowser.
There's also a really nice alternative to deal with this in a type-safe approach (intellisense included) described in the following blog article: mktange's blog.
Basically I'm writing an API using Web API 2 and Entity Framework on the backend.
The thing I'm unsure about is what to do in regards to foreign keys on my models.
Say I got a person property with a foreign key to an order property.
Sometimes the client needs the person property, sometimes it does not. How should I go about this?
Should I create 2 methods:
/api/person/1 <-- returns person without order
/api/personwithorder/1 <-- returns person with order
Seems like an awful lot of methods in my opinion.
I know the queryable attribute exists as well which provides support for the client to use the $extend argument to include properties at will - however I would rather not use the queryable attribute if I can avoid it.
What are your suggestions?
Off the top of my head, here are some options.
Option 1
Multiple methods in API
public Person GetPerson() { ... }
public Person GetPersonWithOrders() { ... }
Option 2
Pass a flag to the method:
public Person GetPerson(bool getOrders) { ... }
Option 3
You could use OData to allow the caller to query the data.
To expand on DavidG's option 3 of using OData, here is how you'd do it:
Install-package Microsoft.AspNet.WebApi.OData
Create a PeopleController inheriting from ODataController
Configure the Web API OData model like so:
modelBuilder.EntitySet<Person>("People");
Define your Get method as returning an IQueryable<Person>
In your calling code, add the expand clause to the URL to specify the child object you would like to expose, like this: /api/People(1)?$expand=Orders
There's a little bit more to it around registering the OData route, but this is all standard configuration that you can find in any sample project.
OData is really very flexible and takes care of tonnes of issues about how you should build your URLs.
few days ago i read tutorial about GenericRepository and Unit Of Work patterns http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/getting-started-with-ef-using-mvc/implementing-the-repository-and-unit-of-work-patterns-in-an-asp-net-mvc-application. I use web forms and i have EntityFramework CTP4 package installed. (I can't using EF 5).
I want to code generic repository for my project but i was stuck at this line:
this.dbSet = context.Set<TEntity>();
I know that this line doesn't work because a use ObjectContext in my project and database first approach. How can i deal with it? Can I code generic repository without migration to code first (which is not an option in my case) ?
This is the equivalent for ObjectContext:
this.dbSet = context.CreateObjectSet<TEntity>();
Now this creates an ObjectSet<TEntity> rather than a DbSet<TEntity>, but for your pattern you can use it in the same way.
UPDATE
The ObjectSet class does not have a utility method like that matches the Find() method of the DbSet. In order to "Get by key" you would need to construct an EntityKey and use the ObjectContext.GetEntityByKey(), unfortunately that's not a really simple thing to do.
There really isn't a simple way to tackle this, that I've found. In my case what I've done is to base all of my entities from a common class (using custom T4 templates to generate the classes from the model). And then I can add a generic constraint to my repositories, like:
public class MyRepository<TEntity> where TEntity : MyEntityBaseClass
And then my common base class has an Id field which is inherited by all the entities so I can can simply do:
return myObjectSet.SingleOrDefault(x => x.Id == myId);
I'm sure there are other approaches, that might be a good topic for another question.
1. You want to add the DbContextGenerator template to your visual studio templates:
2. After this make sure you clear out the default generation tool on your .edmx file.
3. Now you can implement the GenericRepository pattern as you wish.
I know that i can enter/add new properties via code manually into partial classes but i wanted to use the model to add my new properties - reason being is that i can control a number of different attributes like NULL and things like that... and of course the code generations works great..
I added some foreign keys manually just on the model and they work great.
But everytime i add a SCALER PROPERTY i get an error in vs 2010 which says
Error 2538 Error 11009: Property 'testprop' is not mapped.
I can't believe i must map a custom property that i created to a column in the db.... is there no way to say "IGNORE" this property or treat as an unmapped property??
This way my code generation will create the required items BUT i don't get the error
Any help on this would be really helpful.
As i say i know i can edit things manually but wanted to update the model rather than edit a partial class....
I am sure i am missing something obvious?
With EntityFramework 5 you can use the NotMappedAttribute for unmapped properties. So, you can migrate to EF5 or use partial classes on EF4.
I believe that EF will on allow you to use the Model Designer to map to something that exists. If you want to create a property that doesnt exist, you'll have to use the partial class.
I had the same error - you can use the NotMappedAttribute for unmapped properties...
In the context of Entity Framework 4, the default behavior when adding a function import is to call it via ExecuteFunction<T>(), where T must apparently implement some property change notification stuff. (In my case it's generating a complex type derived from ComplexObject.)
I don't need or want any change notifications, and I'm required to send POCOs up the line after these sproc calls.
Is there a way to get a POCO directly from an EF sproc call? If not, does anyone have any recommendations on turning my sproc result into a POCO?
(I've played briefly with the POCO Template, but it doesn't seem to support stored procedures in any way.)
ExecuteFunction<T> returns an ObjectResult<T>, which implements IEnumerable<T>, so you can project the T onto anything via LINQ. E.g.:
IEnumerable<MyPoco> = from f in Context.MyFunction()
select new MyPoco
{
A = f.A,
B = f.B
};