I'm would like to use both EF and MVVM and am trying to see how they fit together. I can't find much in the way of examples so hope you guys can answer a few questions.
Let's say I have a single table in a database called Customer. I run the EF designer and get a data model.
The next step is to run some linq to get data out of the data model. Let's create a new class called CustomerRepository to do this.
Now I'm guessing the Model would call CustomerRepository.GetCustomers to get a list of customers.
Here is my question - CustomerModel has a list of customer objects that were defined by EF in the data model. How do I add validation attributes or any kind of validation to it?
There just seems to be a bit of a disconnect between EF and MVVM. I'm sure some of you have hit this before - any ideas? Any better ways of approaching this?
Cheers
Steve
The validation, the business rules, the presentation of your Customer object should live in the ViewModel that will serve as a controller or presenter for your View.
In terms of how to create that ViewModel, you have a couple of options:
Include the Model as a property of the VM, and pass the model instance into the VM's constructor. You can then expose the Customer's properties and just wire them through to the underlying Model's corresponding properties.
Generate a ViewModel using T4 templates and Reflection (or preferably Introspection) to 'read' the Model, and generate the properties that will map directly to it.
Now you can add custom validation rules to the VM, such that when the appropriate command is sent from the View you can perform your business rules, and if appropriate you can update the Model using EF's API to persist those changes back to the database...
Related
I'm using the Database-first EF model, and use breezeJs for the client-side data management.
Let's say I have a table [User] in my database, with a field called 'AccessCode'. I want to expose the User object through breeze to the clientside, but do not want to expose the AccessCode property. As far as I know, I have the following options:
Make the AccessCode property on the EF generated entity class
Internal.
Create a DTO and omnit the AccessCode property. DTO is
exposed to the client side.
2nd option doesn't work well with breeze, since we should be able to add/modify the User object directly from clientside.
Is there anything wrong with the first option? My concern is that if we make the property internal, the change will be wiped the next time the model is updated. I know if we want to enforce validations, we can use partial classes with the entity class, but we can't do that here.
What would be the best way to achieve the data-hiding here?
DTOs are almost always the right answer when you want to hide pieces of data from different layers.
I have a domain model architecture in which my domain/business objects were created based on the problem domain and independent of any knowledge of the physical data model or persistence structures. So far I'm on track because it's perfectly acceptable and often the case that there is an impedance mismatch between the domain model and the data model. A DBA created the database for getting the data they required, but it does not encapsulate the applications entire domain model or design.
The result - I have my own set of domain model objects. However all of the fields that need to be persisted do exist somewhere or another within my domain model, but not necessarily in the shape that my auto generated .edmx POCO entities have them. So I have all the data, it's just not in the perfect shape exactly like the tables in which auto generated POCO entities are created from.
I have seen a few posts on this topic like converting POCO entity to business entity and Entity Framework 4 with Existing Domain Model that make statements like the following:
"Create the entities in your entity data model with the same names as
your domain classes. The entity properties should also have the same
names and types as in the domain classes"
What!? No way, why should I have to make my domain model be reshaped to POCOs that are modeled exactly after the data model / table structure in the database? For example - in my case of having 5 given properties, 2 might be in class 'A' and 3 in class 'B', whereas a auto generated POCO class has all 5 in its own class 'A'.
This is the entire point, I want separation of my object model and data model but yet still use an ORM like EF 5.0 to map in between them. I do not want to have to create and shape classes and properties named as such in the data model.
Right now my .edmx in EF 5.0 is generating the POCO classes for me, but my question is how to dissolve these and rewire everything to my domain objects that contain all this data but just in a different shape?
By the way any solution proposed using a Code First approach is not an option so please do not offer this. I need some guidance or a tutorial (best) using EF5 (if possible because EF4 examples are always inheriting POCOs from ObjectContext) with wiring up my own business objects to the .edmx.
Any help or guidance is appreciated, thanks!
This sounds like exactly the use case of Entity Framework. I am making a few assumptions here. First that when you make this statement:
"I have a domain model architecture in which my domain/business objects were created based on the problem domain and independent of any knowledge of the physical data model or persistence structures."
That you mean this domain was created in the EF designer? But then you say:
"However all of the fields that need to be persisted do exist somewhere or another within my domain model, but not necessarily in the shape that my auto generated .edmx POCO entities have them."
This sounds to me like my first assumption is incorrect.
Next, you dismiss code first? If your domain model/business objects are code based and you want to persist them to a relational database, that is exactly the use case for code first. You have the code, now you need to create your DbContext and map it to your physical model.
However you dismiss that... so some thoughts:
If you have a domain model of code based business objects and you have an EDMX that is used for other things I think you would want to create a repository layer that uses something like auto mapper or manual projections to query your Entities and return your business objects.
If you have a domain model of code based business objects and you have an EDMX that is not used for other things other than persisting your business objects I would say that you need to express your domain in an EDMX and then map it onto your existing database. This is really the use case for an ORM. Having two domain models and mapping from one model to the other where one model matches your domain and one matches your database is adding an extra un-needed layer of plumbing.
The latter approach above is what is called "Model First" in EF parlance. There are several articles written about it although the bulk of them just generate the db from the model. You would not do that step, rather you would map your entities onto your existing database.
The basic steps for this are to "update from the database" not selecting any of the db objects (or entities would be created). Or, you can take your exiting .edmx in the designer (which is sounds like you have) and modify the entities to match your business domain. Or just delete all the entities in your EDMX model, create your entities as you want them, and then map them all.
Here is a jing I made where I use the EF Designer to bring in the model store (the only way to do this is to allow it to generate entities) and then delete the entities allowing the Store information to stay by clicking NO when it asks if you want to delete the table info.
http://screencast.com/t/8eiPg2kcp
I didn't add the POCO generator to this, but if I did it would generate the Entities in the designer as POCO classes.
The statement quoted above is not suggesting that you rewrite your domain objects to match your pocos, it is suggesting that you update the edmx to match your domain model.
In your example you could create an entity in your edmx that maps all 5 properties from both tables and EF will manage the mapping to and from the single generated Poco onto your tables.
Of course this means that you then have duplicate domain objects and pocos, meaning you would either have to manually convert your domain objects to pocos when interacting with EF,
or you could define your domain data objects as interfaces and provide partial implementations of the pocos that essentially identify each poco as being a concrete implementation of a domain object.
There are probably several other ways to skin this particular cat, but I don't think that you can provide predefined c# objects for use in an edmx.
One approach might be to select into a ViewModel (suited to your particular business logic) and automatically map some data from the context into it like so https://stackoverflow.com/a/8588843/201648. This uses AutoMapper to map entity properties from an EF context into a ViewModel. This won't do everything for you, but it might make life a bit easier. If you're unhappy with the way this occurs automatically, you can configure AutoMapper to do things a bit differently (see Projection) - https://github.com/AutoMapper/AutoMapper/wiki/Projection
You might know this already, but its also possible to automatically generate POCOs from your EDMX using t4 - http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/72a60b14-1581-4b9b-89f2-846072eff19d. If you define the templates to generate partial classes, you can then have another partial class with your custom properties for that POCO. That way you can have most properties automatically populated, but have other custom properties which you populate with custom rules from your context/repository. This takes a lot of the monotony out of generating these, and you can then focus on reshaping the data using the above technique.
If you're seriously unhappy with both, you could always map a stored procedure to get the exact field names that you want automatically without needing to stuff around. This will of course affect how you work with the data, but I have done it before for optimisation purposes/where a procedure already existed that did exactly what I wanted. See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/data/gg699321.aspx
I have two EntityFramework models that I want to combine into a single DTO. Is there a way to do this? There are a couple ideas in the following question, but you would either have to create a composite model, or lose the ability to call Mapper.AssertConfigurationIsValid to verify all of the properties will be set.
Is it possible to map multiple DTO objects to a single ViewModel using Automapper?
single-viewmodel-using-automappe
From my point of view, It is highly recommanded to create a composite type for merging entities. Entities are part of your Business logic or your Domain logic (depending on your architecture), whereas DTO are part of Presentation logic or Transport layer. You can create an explicit mapping that can be easily tested ; automatic mapping (create maps without options) is good for testing only. If you are using a DTO, then you will probably use it somewhere : in WCF ? as a ViewModel ?
Visual Studio and .Net Framework can manage many files and you have not to sacrifice testability or simplicity (do you know "Technical Debt"?)
Note : The role of Mapper.AssertConfigurationIsValid is to validate all mapping, generated by automatic or explicit mapping. I suggest you call this every time.
I am using the Service Layer --> Repository --> Entity Framework (Code-First) w/POCO objects approach, and I am having a hard time with updating entities.
I am using AutoMapper to map my Domain Objects to my View Models and that works good for getting the data, no how do I get that changes back into the database?
Using pure POCO objects, I would assume that there is no sort of change tracking, so I see my only option is to handle it myself. Do you just make sure that your View Models have the EXACT same properties as your Domain Objects? What if I just change a field or two on the View Model? Won't the rest of the fields on the Domain Object get overwritten in the database with default values?
With that said, what is the best approach?
Thanks!
Edit
So what I am stumbling on is this, lets take for example a simple Customer:
1) The Controller has a service, CustomerService, that calls the services GetCustmoerByID method.
2) The Service calls into the CustomerRepository and retrieves the Customer object.
3) Controller uses AutoMapper to map the Customer to the ViewModel.
4) Controller hands the model to the View. Everything is great!
Now in the view you do some modifications of the customer and post it back to the controller to persist the changes to the database.
I would assume at this point the object is detached. So should the model have the EXACT same properties as the Customer object? And do you have to make hidden fields for each item that you do not want to show, so they can persist back?
How do you handle saving the object back to the database? What happens if your view/model only deals with a couple of the fields on the object?
If you're using EF Code First, i.e: the DbContext API, then you still do have change tracking which is taken care of by your context class.
after making changes to your objects, all you have to do is call SaveChanges() on your context and that will persist the changes to your database.
EDIT:
Since you are creating a "copy" of the entity using AutoMapper, then it's no longer attached to your context.
I guess what you could do is something similar to what you would in ASP.NET MVC (with UpdateModel). You can get the original entity from your context, take your ViewModel (which may contain changed properties) and update the old entity, either manually (just modified properties), or using AutoMapper. And then persist the changes using context.SaveChanges().
Another solution would be to send the model entity as [part of] the ViewModel. This way, you'll have your entity attached to the container and change tracking will still work.
Hope this helps :)
You are absolutely right that with a detached object you are responsible for informing the context about changes in your detached entity.
The basic approach is just set the entity as modified. This works for scalar and complex properties but it doesn't work for navigation properties (except FK relations) - for further reading about problems with navigation properties check this answer (it is related to EFv4 and ObjectContext API but same problems are with DbContext API). The disadvantage of this approach is that all fields in DB will be modified. If you just want to modify single field you still have to correctly fill others or your database record will be corrupted.
There is a way to explicitly define which fields have changed. You will set the modified state per property instead of whole entity. It is little bit harder to solve this on generic approach but I tried to show some way for EFv4 and for EFv4.1.
I agree with #AbdouMoumen that it's much simpler to use the model entities at the view level. The service layer should provide an API to persist those entities in the data store (db). The service layer shouldn't dumbly duplicate the repository lawyer (ie: Save(entity) for every entity) but rather provide a high level save for an aggregate of entities. For instance, you could have a Save(order) in the service layer which results in updating more basic entities like inventory, customer, account.
I'm after some opinions \ best practice for handling updates to my repository in the following scenario:
I am using EF 4 with the POCO tt templates which creates nice clean clr objects.
For example's sake lets say I have a POCO object name Customer and a ViewModel called CustomerViewModel. CustomerViewModel has a public property for the Customer object which is populated with the POCO Customer object.The view references the Customer object on the CustomerViewModel. So far so good. Everything is displayed as expected.
When it comes time to update the CustomerViewModel is passed back and only the properties that were bound to the view are populated, fair enough.
What I have now is a POCO object that is missing some of the property values which are needed to update via the EF data context. For example, since I did not display the ID in the view, it was not hydrated back into the view model's Customer property. Not really surprising behaviour but I am wondering what the best way to handle this scenario is.
So here is the question:
Would it be better to map the properties that i don't display into hidden fields so that I have the complete POCO object on postback which is ready for updating to the Repository? (I'm thinking there is needles sending of data to and from the client here)
OR should I do a read of Customer before my update(assuming I have the ID) and then update the properties from my view model object. ( is this a needles read on the database ?).
OR is there another may altogether that I am missing.
I realise that maybe there is no one correct answer for this but I'd be interested to hear how others are handling this scenario.
Thanks
I'm going to answer my own question here... maybe it was a silly question but the act of writing it out has made the answer more obvious..
The first option of populating hidden fields is a bad idea for too many reasons!! So I think I'll have to go with doing a read of the customer object on the post back and calling.
TryUpdateModel(customer, "Customer");
Where customer is the freshly read Customer and "Customer" is the property name on the view model.
It seems that this results in more data access than in a classic ASP where the object could have been shoved (rightly or wrongly) into Session !
Anyone care to add their 2c ?