Consider the following database tables. Unfortunately the tables cannot be altered in any way.
Houses has an auto-increment ID field named Id, a string field named Name and an integer field named AreaId. The latter is not a foreign key to the Areas table.
Areas has a composite key consisting of AreaId, CountryId and LangId. An Area with the same AreaId can exist but with different CountryId and LangId. E.g.: There can be two rows with the same AreaId but different LangId.
NOTE: Why does a House have multiple Areas? A House doesn't have multiple Area's, it only has oneArea. TheArea`s table has a composite key, meaning that a specific row will have multiple translations. E.g.: Area ID 5 might have LangId 5 for English and LangId 3 for Spanish.
The two tables are described by the following two C# classes.
public class House
{
public int Id { get; set; }
[MaxLength(80)]
public string Name { get; set; }
public int? AreaId { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("AreaId")]
public List<Area> Areas { get; set; }
}
public class Area
{
public int AreaId { get; set; }
public int CountryId { get; set; }
public string LangId { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
The composite key is defined in the context, exactly as stated in the docs.
protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
modelBuilder.Entity<Area>()
.HasKey(a => new { a.AreaId, a.CountryId, a.LangId });
}
For example let's get a list of all the Houses in the database, including their respective areas.
_context.Houses.Include(h => h.Areas).ToList();
The following SQL is generated in the output window and the resulting List contains Houses incorrectly matched with the Areas.
SELECT [a].[AreaId], [a].[CountryId], [a].[LangId], [a].[Name]
FROM [Areas] AS [a]
WHERE EXISTS (
SELECT 1
FROM [Houses] AS [h]
WHERE [a].[AreaId] = [h].[Id])
ORDER BY [a].[Id]
As you can see, EntityFramework relates [a].[AreaId] with [h].[Id] and not [h].[AreaId]. How can I express this relationship in EF?
You won't be able to map this correctly in EF. If you want House to refer to Area, the foreign key should consist of the same fields as Area's composite key, otherwise EF won't accept the mapping. A work-around could be to skip the mapping and to join the entities manually when necessary, but that conceals the real issue: poor design.
The major design flaw is that you have to duplicate an Area when translations are added. Now the question is -- and always will be -- Which record represents my physical Area entity? The basic premise of a relational database is that entities are represented by unique records. Your design violates that core principle.
Unfortunately the tables cannot be altered in any way.
Well, they should be! Leaving it this way shouldn't even be considered. You shouldn't work with a warped relational model, it's too pivotal for smooth application development.
The model, as I can piece it together from your description, should probably be something like this:
public class House
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int? AreaId { get; set; }
public Area Area { get; set; }
}
public class Area
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int CountryId { get; set; }
public Country Country { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; } // E.g. the name in a default language
public ICollection<AreaTranslation> AreaTranslations { get; set; }
}
public class AreaTranslation
{
public int AreaId { get; set; }
public int LanguageId { get; set; }
public string LocalizedName { get; set; }
}
public class Country
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
public class Language
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
For this model you need one explicit mapping instruction (EF will infer the rest):
modelBuilder.Entity<AreaTranslation>()
.HasKey(a => new { a.AreaId, a.LanguageId });
You see that Area now genuinely represents a physical area out there. A House now naturally has one Area, not this weird collection of Areas that must be considered as one area somehow. The various languages come into play by the AreaTranslation junction class. I assume that an Area belongs to one Country.
Related
The main goal is the ability to have a many to many relationship between the table Mucle and Exercise. I want an Exercise to have both a primary and a secodary muscle group.
Is it possible to have two icollections in one model and only one in the other?
If someone could help with the "fluent configuration" as well, I would appreciate it!
Here is the code I have got right now.
public class Muscle
{
public int MuscleID { get; set; }
public bool IsFront { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Exercise> Exercises { get; set; }
}
public class Exercise
{
public int ExerciseID { get; set; }
// ExerciseCategory
public int ExerciseCategoryID { get; set; }
public DateTime CreationDate { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public virtual ExerciseCategory ExerciseCategory { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Muscle> Muscles { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Muscle> MusclesSecondary { get; set; }
}
No way to map the model you described.
To map your model (2 n-m relationship) you would need a Junction table with a discriminator and you can't do it with EF.
You have several way to change your model to make it work with EF
You create a model (a class) for the Junction table and insert a discriminator in it. Your model changes (and I think that the new model is less clear)
Why is there a Muscles and MusclesSecondary? Can it be discriminated with an attribute of Muscle? In this case you can have the attribute in Muscle and remove Exercise.MusclesSecondary Then you have only an n-m relationship that EF handles with a Junction table.
If you want this model you can add 2 collections to Muscle (for example ExcercisesMuscle and ExercisesMusclesSecondary) and a 3rd not mapped collection where you have the content of ExcercisesMuscle and ExercisesMusclesSecondary toghether. About the ExcercisesMuscle and ExercisesMusclesSecondary they can be observable collections so you can cache the content of Exercises collection in an efficient way.
I've got some objects that look like this:
abstract public class Field
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Ordinal { get; set; }
}
[Table("DropDownField")]
public class DropDownField : Field
{
public virtual List<FieldOption> Options { get; set; }
}
[Table("RadioButtonField")]
public class RadioButtonField : Field
{
public virtual List<FieldOption> Options { get; set; }
}
public class FieldOption
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Value { get; set; }
}
In my database, it ends up creating the a FieldOptions table using Code First. However, it creates the following columns:
Id
Name
Value
DropDownField_Id
RadioButtonField_Id
What I'd like to see is just one Field_Id in this table since the Id of a field has to be unique across the different types of fields.
Is there a way to do this? I've done some searching but I must not know the right search terms to use to find the answer.
imho, what you want, from a relational database point of view, is a column (Option.FieldId) being a foreign key to 2 tables DropDownField and RadioButtonField.
That is whenever you insert an option, FieldId must reference an existing DropDownField AND an existing RadioButtonField.
That is at least weird.
I don't think this can/should be achieved.
My problem looks simple. I need to implement a relationships between items in the database. For example: relationship between entities like computer and software shows users that computer stores a specific software and similarly - a software is installed in the specific computer. I think I should implement an entity with source id and target id or something similar. I wrote some code using code first in EntityFramework 6. Here are two classes:
public class ConfigurationItem
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public String Name { get; set; }
public String DeploymentState { get; set; }
public String IncidentState { get; set; }
[DataType(DataType.MultilineText)]
public String Description { get; set; }
[DataType(DataType.MultilineText)]
public String Note { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Relationship> Relationship { get; set; }
}
public class Relationship
{
[Key]
public int RelationshipId { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("ConfigurationItem")]
public int SourceId { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("ConfigurationItem")]
public int TargetId { get; set; }
public String Type { get; set; }
public virtual ConfigurationItem Source { get; set; }
public virtual ConfigurationItem Target { get; set; }
}
This solution doesn't work. I need a tip or something what should I try to make it work properly. EF throws an error about foreign key:
The ForeignKeyAttribute on property 'SourceId' on type 'cms_1.Models.Relationship' is not valid. The navigation property 'ConfigurationItem' was not found on the dependent type 'cms_1.Models.Relationship'. The Name value should be a valid navigation property name.
When I try to resolve it EF throws an error about cascade deleting. I know how to disable it but I just don't want to. I need a proper solution with that feature but I think I don't know how to do a model representing given scenario.
Simply - I need to store two foreign keys from entity "A" in the entity "B". How is it possible?
from a quick review , I can tell that you need 3 tables :
first : Computer
second : Software
third : a table , lets call it ComputerSoftware which tell which software has in what computer ( or you can also see it - which computer use what software ), which has ComputerID column and SoftwareID column.
example (source)
class Country
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<CountryCurrency> CountryCurrencies { get; set; }
}
class Currency
{
public int Id { get; set; }
}
class CountryCurrency
{
[Key, Column(Order=0)]
public virtual int CountryId { get; set; }
[Key, Column(Order=1)]
public virtual int CurrencyId { get; set; }
public virtual Country Country { get; set; }
public virtual Currency Currency { get; set; }
}
Your issue could be that in the migration file creating those tables, it will have something like
.ForeignKey("dbo.Relationship", t => t.Id, cascadeDelete: true)
This will be set on both tables, ConfigurationItem and Relationship of their Primary Key fields. When you delete one, that config tells SQL Server to delete the relationships as well and the relationship probably has a cascadeDelete: true to the parent. This will cause the cyclical cascading delete issue you are experiencing.
After the migration has been generated, go in and change one or all to cascadeDelete: false and this will fix that issue. This is what EF generates by default if I recall.
Working in one project (Catering theme ) when I was designing the database I didn't take care about some thing , and now Is very hard to avoid some kine of errors(Circular error).
Suppose I have following scenario :
I have Meal object that should be composed from a list of semi-finished products (we will call it Product ) and list of simple Resources.
One Product is composed from a list of Resoruces and list of products.
So in real example this will look like this:
Meal: Pizza that contains list of Resoruces(cheese,dough) and list of Products : in our case will be just :Sauce.
Sauce will be composed from List of Resources(salt,Some cheese ,tomato Sauce) and a List of Products (in our case will be just one "Chopped tomatoes with salt")
So now I have following classes:
public class Resource
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
public class ProductToProduct
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public Product MainProduct { get; set; }
public Product Component { get; set; }
public double Quantity { get; set; }
}
public class ProductToResource
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public Product Product { get; set; }
public Resource Resource { get; set; }
public double Quantityt { get; set; }
}
public class Meal
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public IList<MealToProduct> MealToProducts { get; set; }
public IList<MealToResource> MealToResources { get; set; }
}
public class MealToResource
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public Meal Meal { get; set; }
public Resource Resource { get; set; }
public double Quantity { get; set; }
}
public class MealToProduct
{
public Meal Meal { get; set; }
public Product Product { get; set; }
public double Quantity { get; set; }
}
public class Product
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public IList<ProductToResource> ProdcutToResources { get; set; }
public IList<ProductToResource> ProductToProducts { get; set; }
}
My problem is in relation between Product to Product.
Suppose I will have Product1, Product2 , Product3 , Product4.
Product 1 will be composed from something and Prodcut2, Product4.
Product2 will be composed from something and Prodcut3.
Prodcut 3 will be composed from something and Prodcut4.
Prodcut 4 will be composed from something and Prodcut1 , in this case when I will try to calcualte Cost for Product1 , or Product 4 I will get an Circular error.
So my problem is in ProductToProduct table.
My question is how I must to design tables to avoid this kind of errors .
I AM VERY SORRY FOR MY EXPLICATION BUT IT IS VERY HARD TO EXPLAIN THIS PROBLEM.
PLEASE ASK ME IF SOMETHING IS UNCLEAR.
THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION.
Note:This is not so important for this case but I am working in ASP.Net mvc , orm is Fluent Nhibernate.
Here's an example of a function you could use to detect whether a parent-child relationship exists. I have assumed that the product relationships are described in a table called ProductLink, which has two foreign keys to Product: ParentProductId and ChildProductId.
This function uses a recursive query to determine the complete list of products which are children of the product denoted by the argument #ParentProductId, then does a simple test to see whether #ChildProductId appears in that list.
create function dbo.ProductRelationshipExists
(
#ParentProductId int,
#ChildProductId int
)
returns bit
as
begin
declare #ChildExists bit = 0;
with ProductChildCTE as
(
-- Base case: Get the parent's direct children.
select ChildProductId from ProductLink where ParentProductId = #ParentProductId
-- Recursive case: Get the children's children.
union all
select
ProductLink.ChildProductId
from
ProductChildCTE
inner join ProductLink on ProductChildCTE.ChildProductId = ProductLink.ParentProductId
)
select #ChildExists = 1 from ProductChildCTE where ChildProductId = #ChildProductId;
return #ChildExists;
end
When someone tries to insert a record into ProductLink, you could use a test like this to determine whether the proposed parent and child are already in the table as child and parent, respectively, and disallow the insertion if so.
This was just a quick write-up to illustrate one possible approach; I should mention that I don't know how well the performance of this thing will scale as the table gets larger. Hopefully it will suffice for your case. If not, let me know how to improve it.
public class Product
{
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public decimal Price { get; set; }
public bool IsInStock { get; set; }
public string ImageUrl { get; set; }
public List<ProductOption> ProductOptions { get; set; }
public virtual Category Category { get; set; }
}
public class ProductOption
{
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public string ProductOptionName { get; set; }
public string ProductOptionDescription { get; set; }
}
Now I know when your using Code First EF, so that the tables are created correctly. You need to do something like this.
modelBuilder.Entity<Product>().HasMany(p => p.ProductOptions).WithMany().Map(m =>
{
m.MapLeftKey("ProductId").MapRightKey("ProductOptionId").ToTable("SelectedProductOptionsInOrderedItem");
});
So....
Does this mean that if I do something like Product.ProductOptions I will be able to access all associated productoptions.
Is this the best way to set it up, or is there another way?
To enable lazy load and EF can create derived proxy types for your collection, that property should be declared this way:
public virtual ICollection<ProductOptions> ProductOptions { get; set; }
That should be enought. Other aspect is the mapping approach that you use. You choose fluent api, i prefer mapping by convention, but that is a matter of personal taste anyway.
Ok, Mapping by Conventions:
Is the ability of EF that from the name of entities and their properties along with their types, to map our model with the underlying data without providing any other information.
for example
public class Customer {
public long CustomerID {get; September;}
public string CustomerName {get; September;}
public Employee AssignedTo {get; September;}
}
With the previous model EF will map database with a table named Customer with:
. CustomerID bigint primary key column
. CustomerName nvarchar column
. Customer_EmployeeID foreign key to Employee table, with the datatype Corresponding to EmployeeID in that table.
You can read more Here