ADO.NET Entity : getting data from 3 tables - entity-framework

I have following table structure:
Table: Plant
PlantID: Primary Key
PlantName: String
Table: Party
PartyID: Primary Key
PartyName: String
PlantID: link to Plant table
Table: Customer
PartyID: Primary Key, link to Party
CustomerCode: String
I'd like to have Customer entity object with following fields:
PartyID: Primary Key
CustomerCode: String
PartyName: String
PlantName: String
I am having trouble with PlantName field (which is brought from Plant table
I connected Customer to Party and Party to Plant with associations
However I can not connect Customer to Plant with association ( because it does not have one)
I can not add Plant table to mapping, when I do that - I am getting following error:
Error 3024: Problem in Mapping Fragment starting at line 352: Must specify mapping for all key properties (CustomerSet.PartyID) of the EntitySet CustomerSet
Removing Plant association works.
Any hints or directions very appreciated.

You can get these fields by using the reference path on the Entity Object.
To get the PartyName, use this syntax: Customer.Party.PartyName
To get the PlantName, use this syntax: Customer.Party.Plant.PlantName

You can extend the Customer entity by using the public partial class:
public partial class Customer
{
public string PartyName
{
get { return Party.PartyName; }
set { Party.PartyName = value; }
}
public string PlantName
{
get { return Party.Plant.PlantName; }
set { Party.Plant.PlantName = value; }
}
}

After some research, I came across this thread on MSDN that says you can create a read-only entity, which is enough of a downside to not use it alone, but it gets worse. You will also lose the ability to update all of the models dynamically based on the schema of the database.

Related

Updating an EF Core entity which has primary key with multiple columns

I have an entity with its primary key made up from two columns.
This is the model class:
public class DemoEntity
{
public Guid EntityId {get;set;} // randomly generated primary key
public int Id {get;set;}. //auto increment identity primary key
public string Description {get;set;}
}
I want to update couple of entities which I will be receiving from client. Client doesn't get EntityId, so in payload we won't have it.
Payload will look like this:
[
{
"id": 1,
"description": "Updating entity with I'd =1"
}
]
Above payload can have maximum 6 object.
In order to update the database, I am using this code:
[HttpPut]
public Task<ActionResult> Update([FromBody] List<DemoEntity> entities)
{
_dbContext.UpdateRange(entities);
await _dbContext.SaveChangesAsync();
return No content();
}
This code is throwing an error while saving changes to the database:
An error occurred while saving the entity changes. See the inner exception for details.
Cannot insert non-DEFAULT value into column "id".
Column "id" is an identity column defined as GENERATED ALWAYS.
This error is getting fixed if I set EntityId. But we don't want to expose the EntityId to the client.
Is there any way to specify that which primary key EF core should use internally while updating the entity in case there are multiple primary keys are present?

Best JPA Inheritance option to implement the following requirement

Having the following kind of table tables. What will be the good approach to persist these tables? Used inheritance strategy for this, but it didn't work as expected.
Requirement 1: Need to persist student table, it will persist the member as well as address table as well
Requirement 2: Need to persist teacher table, it will persist the member as well as address table as well
Need to perform get, update and delete option on these tables.
Member {
member_id - have one to one relation with student id and teacher id
lastupdateddate
latupdatedby
}
Student {
student id - have one to one relation with member id
student name
lastupdateddate
latupdatedby
}
teacher {
teacher id - have one to one relation ship with member
teacher name
lastupdateddate
latupdatedby
}
address {
address id
member_id - have one to one relationship with member class
lastupdateddate
latupdatedby
}
When I persist/update student details, the address related info is not properly inserted or updated.When I check insert queries fired on member, then student table after on address table. But, in the insert query to address table, the member_id value is coming as null.Because of this only address table is not populated.
Entity structure is is as given below
public abstract class Member implements Serializable {
}
public class Student extends member implements Serializable {
}
public class Teacher extends member implements Serializable {
}
public class Address implements Serializable {
}
The mapping is mentioned as given below. Tried out various available options.
In member entity class
#Access(AccessType.PROPERTY)
#OneToOne(mappedBy="member", cascade=CascadeType.ALL)
public Address getAddress() {
return postalAddress;
}
In address entity class
#OneToOne(fetch=FetchType.LAZY)
#JoinColumn(name = "MEMBER_ID")
private Address address;
It looks like you have 2 options:
InheritanceType.JOINED. It's almost what you've described: common part is in one table, different parts are in different tables. On each request JOIN will occure
InheritanceType.SINGLE_TABLE. Here all the data will be stored in single table and descriminator will be used to determine if record if for student or for teacher.
Personally I would prefer second options because you have almost all fields in common, also most of operations are lighter and involve WHERE, not JOIN.

JPA Error : The entity has no primary key attribute defined

I am using JPA in my application. In one of the table, I have not used primary key (I know its a bad design).
Now the generated entity is as mentioned below :
#Entity
#Table(name="INTI_SCHEME_TOKEN")
public class IntiSchemeToken implements Serializable {
private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
#Column(name="CREATED_BY")
private String createdBy;
#Temporal( TemporalType.DATE)
#Column(name="CREATED_ON")
private Date createdOn;
#Column(name="SCH_ID")
private BigDecimal schId;
#Column(name="TOKEN_ID")
private BigDecimal tokenId;
public IntiSchemeToken() {
}
public String getCreatedBy() {
return this.createdBy;
}
public void setCreatedBy(String createdBy) {
this.createdBy = createdBy;
}
public Date getCreatedOn() {
return this.createdOn;
}
public void setCreatedOn(Date createdOn) {
this.createdOn = createdOn;
}
public BigDecimal getSchId() {
return this.schId;
}
public void setSchId(BigDecimal schId) {
this.schId = schId;
}
public BigDecimal getTokenId() {
return this.tokenId;
}
public void setTokenId(BigDecimal tokenId) {
this.tokenId = tokenId;
}
}
Here In my project, eclipse IDE shows ERROR mark(RED colored cross) on this class and the error is "The entity has no primary key attribute defined".
Can anyone tell me, How to create an entity without primary key ?
Thanks.
You can't. An entity MUST have a unique, immutable ID. It doesn't have to be defined as a primary key in the database, but the field or set of fields must uniquely identify the row, and its value may not change.
So, if one field in your entity, or one set of fields in your entity, satisfies these criteria, make it (or them) the ID of the entity. For example, if there is no way that a user can create two instances in the same day, you could make [createdOn, createdBy] the ID of the entity.
Of course this is a bad solution, and you should really change your schema and add an autogenerated, single-column ID in the entity.
If your Primary Key(PK) is a managed super class which is inherited in an entity class then you will have to include the mapped super class name in the persistence.xml file.
Look at the bug report:
https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=361042
If you need to define a class without primary key, then you should mark that class as an Embeddable class. Otherwise you should give the primary key for all entities you are defining.
You can turn off (change) validation that was added.
Go to workspace preferences 'Java Persistence->JPA->Errors/Warnings' next 'Type' and change 'Entity has no primary key' to 'Warnning'.
In addition to http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Java_Persistence/Identity_and_Sequencing#No_Primary_Key you can use some build-in columns like ROWID in Oracle:
Oracle legacy table without good PK: How to Hibernate?
but with care:
http://www.orafaq.com/wiki/ROWID
Entity frameworks doesn't work for all kind of data (like statistical data which was used for analysis not for querying).
Another solution without Hibernate
If
- you don't have PK on the table
- there is a logical combination of columns that could be PK (not necessary if you can use some kind of rowid)
-- but some of the columns are NULLable so you really can't create PK because of DB limitation
- and you can't modify the table structure (would break insert/select statements with no explicitly listed columns at legacy code)
then you can try the following trick
- create view at database with virtual column that has value of concatenated logical key columns ('A='||a||'B='||'C='c..) or rowid
- create your JPA entity class by this view
- mark the virtual column with #Id annotation
That's it. Update/delete data operations are also possible (not insert) but I wouldn't use them if the virtual key column is not made of rowid (to avoid full scan searches by the DB table)
P.S. The same idea is partly described at the linked question.
You need to create primary key ,If not found any eligible field then create auto increment Id.
CREATE TABLE fin_home_loan (
ID int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
PRIMARY KEY (ID));
Just add fake id field.
In Postgres:
#Id
#Column(name="ctid")
String id;
In Oracle:
#Id
#Column(name="ROWID")
String rowid;

EF 4.1 Code First. Table-per-type inheritance with different primary key name from its base class' primary key name

Given this:
create table Location(
LocationId int identity(1,1) not null primary key,
Address nvarchar(max) not null,
City nvarchar(max) null,
State nvarchar(max) not null,
ZipCode nvarchar(max) not null
);
create table Park(
ParkId int not null primary key references Location(LocationId),
Name nvarchar(max) not null
);
I tried this mapping:
modelBuilder.Entity<Location>();
modelBuilder.Entity<Park>().ToTable("Park");
modelBuilder.Entity<Park>().Property(x => x.LocationId).HasColumnName("ParkId");
Unfortunately that didn't work.
using (var db = new Ef())
{
var park = new Park { Name = "11th Street Park", Address = "801 11th Street", City = "Aledo", State = "TX", ZipCode = "76106" };
db.Set<Location>().Add(park);
db.SaveChanges();
}
It has this error:
The property 'LocationId' is not a declared property on type 'Park'.
Verify that the property has not been explicitly excluded from the
model by using the Ignore method or NotMappedAttribute data
annotation. Make sure that it is a valid primitive property.
How should I map Park entity so its LocationId property fall to ParkId column?
I have this mapping by the way:
public class Location
{
public virtual int LocationId { get; set; }
public virtual string Address { get; set; }
public virtual string City { get; set; }
public virtual string State { get; set; }
public virtual string ZipCode { get; set; }
}
public class Park : Location
{
public virtual string Name { get; set; }
}
If it could help, this is possible in EF 4.0 (via designer), just followed the steps in Chapter 2-11 of Entity Framework 4.0 Recipes, Problem Solution Approach. Now I'm trying it on code first via EF 4.1
[EDIT]
If I change the ParkId to LocationId, things are ok. However, with designer approach, it is possible to map the LocationId to ParkId of table Park; I want to achieve the same thing with code first
create table Park(
LocationId int not null primary key references Location(LocationId),
Name nvarchar(max) not null
);
As I know (and I tried it multiple times) code first doesn't support this => your derived type should use same column names for primary key.
This problem can be described very simply: Current fluent mapping implementation doesn't allow overriding mapping rules from parent entity => parent entity defines names of primary key columns in all derived entities.
IMO the most probable reason is that it was really designed as code first where you don't have existing database and you do not have to bother with database naming - it was up to EF to define names as it needed. Once DbContext API was released people started to use it with existing database massively. But here comes a problem: Initial use cases didn't count with this so some scenarios which are pretty easily done in EDMX are not possible. This is one of them.
Here is a workaround for this issue:
Create a view for the derived table and map your entity class that view. Rename the key column in your view so that it matches the key column in the base table.
eg:
base table User (UserID, FirstName, LastName)
derived table Manager (ManagerID, DepartmentID)
Entity Framework fails to update Manager as the key column is different!
solution:
create view UserManager
as
select
ManagerID as UserID,
DepartmentID
from Manager
Then map the Manager class to the UserManager view, instead of to the Manager table.

How to create and store a (self-tracking) entity object on the server side?

I am trying to achieve the following using Entity framework 4.0 and self-tracking entities:
1) The client application request a book form the server by providing an ISBN number
2) The server performs a query on its database to see if the book is already present
3a) If the book is in the database, it returns it.
3b) If the book is not in the database, it will query Amazon for info, extract the required attributes, create a new book, store it in the database, and return it to the client
Now, 3b) is where the problems are... I can't find any information on how I can create an entity object (a book) on the server side, add it to the context and store it in the database. I have tried all sorts of things:
public class BookBrowserService : IBookBrowserService {
public Book GetBook(string ISBN) {
using (var ctx = new BookBrowserModelContainer()) {
Book book = ctx.Books.Where(b => b.ISBN == ISBN).SingleOrDefault();
if (book == null) {
book = new Book();
book.ISBN = ISBN; // This is the key
book.Title = "This title would be retrieved from Amazon";
Author author = new Author();
author.Name = "The author's name would be retrieved from Amazon";
book.Authors.Add(author);
ctx.Books.AddObject(book);
ctx.SaveChanges(); // This one always throws an exception...
}
return book;
}
}
}
Could anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?
It looks like the problem is related to the EDMX model.
I have a Book entity and an Author entity, with a many-to-many relationship.
The Book entity's Key is ISBN, which is a string of Max length 13.
StoreGeneratedPattern is set to None.
The Author entity's Key is Id, which is a Guid.
StoreGeneratedPattern is Identity.
The exception message is:
"Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'Id', table 'BookBrowser.dbo.Authors'; column does not allow nulls. INSERT fails. The statement has been terminated. "
But since StoreGeneratedPattern is set to Identity, shouldn't an Id value be created automatically?
Thanks,
Peter
It looks that the problem was that I used a Guid as Key in combination with StoreGeneratedPattern = Identity.
When I set StoreGeneratedPattern to None and create my own Guid using Id = Guid.NewGuid(), the problem is gone.
Apparently, the SQL server cannot generate Guids...
you can use StoreGeneratedPattern=Identity, but generated sql script based on your edmx doesn`t contain newid() in describing primary key(GUID). you can do this manually in generated sql script. 'BookId uniqueidentifier NOT NULL
DEFAULT newid()'. So id value will create GUID automatically.