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Mapping a Dto to an object with id

I am making an app using the ASP.Net Boilerplate framework and in my Domain layer I have a simple "Boss" entity. Creating and retrieving these entities from the database works fine but I can't get the "Update" to work. When map my "UpdateBossDto" to a Boss object and try to update it I get this error:
$exception {System.InvalidOperationException: The instance of entity
type 'Boss' cannot be tracked because another instance with the same
key value for {'Id'} is already being tracked. When attaching existing
entities, ensure that only one entity instance with a given key value
is attached. Consider using
'DbContextOptionsBuilder.EnableSensitiveDataLogging' to see the
conflicting key values.
This error gets thrown in the BossManager class (I have removed the other methods for readability.
public class BossManager : DomainService, IBossManager
{
private readonly IRepository<Boss> _repositoryBoss;
public BossManager(IRepository<Boss> repositoryBoss)
{
_repositoryBoss = repositoryBoss;
}
public void Update(Boss entity)
{
_repositoryBoss.UpdateAsync(entity);
}
}
Here is my Update method in the BossAppService (i know getting the Id this way probably isn't great but right now I'm just desperate):
public void Update(UpdateBossDto updatedBoss)
{
var boss = new Boss();
updatedBoss.Id = _bossManager.GetBossIdByName(updatedBoss.Name);
boss = ObjectMapper.Map<Boss>(updatedBoss);
_bossManager.Update(boss);
}
And my UpdateDto class which holds the same attributes as the Boss class itself:
public class UpdateBossDto
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Hp { get; set; }
public int CombatLvl { get; set; }
public int MaxHit { get; set; }
public string AttackStyle { get; set; }
public string Weakness { get; set; }
public string ImageUrl { get; set; }
}
How can I update the Boss object either with or without the Id? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

There's a number of issues here. First, the id should be coming from the request URL, since it uniquely identifies the resource that's being modified. This also saves you from having to do silly things like GetBossIdByName. Not only does that require an unnecessary query, but it's prone to error. The id is your key for a reason: it's unique. Names are not. You could have multiple bosses with the same name. Additionally, your name columns are likely not indexed, which means such a query is vastly more inefficient. Then, with your id, you should be querying the corresponding Boss out of your database, and mapping onto this instance, not creating a new instance. Finally, save that same instance back to the database. Then, you will have no issues.

Updatewithchildren SQLite.net extension do not replace the old element

I'm using SQLite extension to create a DB. OnetoOne relation and ManytoOne relations work fine, I'm using InsertorReplacewithChildren to manage new and modified elements. But when it comes to OnetoMany relations I have some problems.
Following SQLite-Net Extensions Manual I have added this in my parent class:
[PrimaryKey, AutoIncrement]
public int ID_child { get; set; }
...
[OneToMany(CascadeOperations = CascadeOperation.All)]
public List<ClinicalTest> ClinicalTests_DB { get; set; }
and this in my child class:
[PrimaryKey, AutoIncrement]
public int ID_clinicaltest { get; set; }
[ForeignKey(typeof(Child))]
public int ID_child { get; set; }
The problem is that if I change some fields of an element in my ClinicalTest and I call either UpdatewithChildren(FatherClassInstance) or InsertorReplacewithChildren(FatherClassInstance) the result is that in the ClinicalTests Table I have two rows: one is the updated element (with the correct foreingkey) and one is the old element (without any foreingkey).
I would have expected just one row with the updated element.
Am I doing something wrong?
Should I clean manually these useless elements?
Thanks,
Alex

Nothing, sorry for the trouble.
In my code the ID of the clinical test was "lost" during some passages. That was the cause of the problem.

Entity Framework 6 not recognizing One-To-Many relationship when retrieving data

When I insert my objects, they recognize they are one-to-many and the foreign key is correctly placed in the many side table.
When I retrieve my objects, they do not recognize the one-to-many on the one side table so I cannot access the ICollection of the many side objects. Specifically a Null Reference Exception is thrown when trying to access the collection/
In the explanation below, Incident is the one side and Disturbance is the many side. An Incident is associated with many Disturbances, but a Disturbance is a part of only one Incident.
Disclaimer: due to some project constraints and some modules being built on top of other modules we are using Entity Framework in our DAL and have models cross cutting Business/Data. This may factor into the issue. I'm aware this isn't ideal, but this is where we are at and I haven't seen anything that explicitly says you cannot use EF like this.
I have an Incident defined like this:
public class Incident
{
public Incident()
{
}
public Incident(List<Disturbance> sortedDisturbances)
{
StartTime = sortedDisturbances[0].StartTime;
Disturbances = new List<Disturbance>(sortedDisturbances);
}
[Key]
public int IncidentID { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Disturbance> Disturbances { get; set; }
[Column(TypeName="datetime2")]
public DateTime? StartTime { get; set; }
}
I had to add a parameterless constructor to deal with errors resulting from Entity Framework trying to use a parameterless constructor in certain areas.
I have a Disturbance defined like this :
public class Disturbance : IComparable<Disturbance>
{
[Key]
public int DisturbanceID { get; set; }
[Column(TypeName = "datetime2")]
public DateTime StartTime { get; set; }
[Column(TypeName = "datetime2")]
public DateTime EndTime { get; set; }
public int CompareTo(Disturbance other)
{
if (this.StartTime < other.StartTime)
return 1;
if (this.StartTime > other.StartTime)
return -1;
return 0;
}
}
I haven't read anything that said implementing an interface would break anything in Entity Framework so I did it.
This is how I add an Incident:
Business Layer:
private void MakeIncident(List<Disturbance> DisturbancesToAggregate)
{
Incident incidentToInsert = new Incident(DisturbancesToAggregate);
_iDAL.InsertIncident(incidentToInsert);
}
Data Layer:
public void InsertIncident(Incident incidentToInsert)
{
using (var context = new InternalContext())
{
context.Incident.Add(incidentToInsert);
context.SaveChanges();
}
}
The problem is that when I access my Incidents:
public IEnumerable<DomainModel.Disturbance> GetProcessedDisturbances()
{
List<DomainModel.Disturbance> processedDisturbances = new List<DomainModel.Disturbance>();
using(var context = new InternalContext())
{
foreach(var i in context.Incident)
{
foreach(var d in i.Disturbances)
{
processedDisturbances.Add(d);
}
}
}
return processedDisturbances;
}
The i.Disturbances Collection causes a Null Reference Exception. Is there something I need to call to force the context to get the Disturbances? Am I doing something blatantly wrong?
My ideas (I don't like any of them and don't want to do any of them):
1. Explicitly put the IncidentID on the Disturbance table (not even sure if this would work)
2. Force a lookup table by adding an ICollection of Incidents to Disturbances (its not a many-to-many relationship and I think this would prevent me from being able to clear all Disturbances from an Incident)
3. Explicitly define the relationship when the model is created. (I don't like the idea of having to do this, plus I think EF is half way there because it is inserting correctly.

Its happening because of lazy loading in EF. We need to Eagerly loading the data. To know more about them, please refer the link below.
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-in/data/jj574232.aspx

Entity framework 6 foreign key is not being updated on attach and save

I have a issue with entity framework 6 not updating the foreign key when I try to update a entity object. It works on insert (but then I have to set the state to Unchanged for not to reinsert a new entity in the foreign key table). I am using code first approach and generated the models myself. It's a web application so the entity objects gets detached, so I have to reattach them.
I've created a simplified example so it's easy to explain what my problem is. In this example I have a car object which has a one to many relation to make. I want to update a car and change what make it is and its name. The name is updated but not the foreign key value. How do I go ahead to get the foreign key to be updated too?
The code handeling the attaching
public void UpdateCars(Car car){
var dbContext = new CarsDbContext(); //Inherits DbContext
dbContext.Cars.Attach(car);
dbContext.Entry(car).State = EntityState.Modified;
dbContext.SaveChanges();
}
The car Entity
[Table("Car")]
public class Car
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public String Name { get; set; }
public virtual Make Make { get; set; }
}
[Table("Make")]
public class Make
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public String Name { get; set; }
}
Edit:
I did a few more changes with help from comments (thanks guys!) and I made something work but it feels like I'm doing it the wrong way because the code is far from pretty. Here's what I did:
Modified the Car object to:
public String Name { get; set; }
public Guid Make_Id
[ForeignKey("Make_Id")]
public virtual Make Make { get; set; }
In my update
var dbContext = new CarsDbContext(); //Inherits DbContext
car.Make_Id = car.Make.Id;
dbContext.Cars.Attach(car);
There surely must be a better practice around this when doing EF code first when working with detached entities?

I ended up using graphdiff which solved all my problems. Also when my entities became more complex and it tried to attachs same entity several times. Here's a article to read about it: http://blog.brentmckendrick.com/introducing-graphdiff-for-entity-framework-code-first-allowing-automated-updates-of-a-graph-of-detached-entities/

ASP.NET MVC Many-to-Many Relationship (Maintaining insertion order)

I've defined two tables in SQL: "Inquerito" and "Pergunta", and a third table "Inquerito_Pergunta" to make the many-to-many relationship. In that last table, the primary key is both the primary key of the Inquerito and the Pergunta.
I'am supposed to add as many as "Perguntas" as I want into an "Inquerito" instance. And, it's important to keep the insertion order, so when I'm showing it to the user it's shown in the same order. A "Pergunta" can also have multiple "Inquerito", but the order doesn't matter in that case.
I'm using MVC 4 Entity Framework and my Models are defined like this:
public partial class Inquerito
{
public Inquerito()
{
this.Pergunta = new List<Pergunta>();
}
public System.Guid id { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Pergunta> Pergunta { get; set; }
}
public partial class Pergunta
{
public Pergunta()
{
this.Inquerito = new List<Inquerito>();
}
public System.Guid id { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Inquerito> Inquerito { get; set; }
}
As you can see I've already changed the default HashSet to a List.
To save all stuff to the database I do:
inquerito.Pergunta.Add(pergunta);
db.Pergunta.Add(pergunta);
db.Inquerito.Add(inquerito);
The problem is the insertion order is lost.
After adding all "Pergunta" that I want I do:
// Grava alterações e desconecta da base de dados.
db.SaveChanges();
Inquerito inquerito1 = db.Inquerito.Find(inquerito.id);
if (inquerito1 != null)
{
foreach (Pergunta p in inquerito1.Pergunta.ToList())
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("__pergunta: " + p.descricao);
}
}
db = new quest_geralEntities();
inquerito1 = db.Inquerito.Find(inquerito.id);
if (inquerito1 != null)
{
foreach (Pergunta p in inquerito1.Pergunta.ToList())
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("__pergunta: " + p.descricao);
}
}
So, the first time I print all the "Pergunta" linked to that "Inquerito" everything is shown in the right order (insertion order), but when I update the context, with: "new quest_geralEntities()" when I print it again the insertion order is completely lost.
I've been struggling with this problem for several hours now and I can't find a solution. I hope I've been clear enough to be helped.
Thanks.

If you want to maintain insertion order, I recommend using a field containing an int that increments. You can add an int identity column without it being the primary key and use that column to sort on, maintaining your insertion order.

You can try to change the property type of your relation :
public virtual IList<Inquerito> Inquerito { get; set; }
public virtual IList<Pergunta> Pergunta { get; set; }
You'll need to regenerate the database schema. I'm not sure if it's working on EF, but in NHibernate, it works.
Hope it helps !