Having trouble grouping columns in Linq query with multiple joins - linq

Question

I have an MVC ViewModel that I'd like to pass through to a Razor view. In the controller, I've created a database context and joined tables together using Linq. Once summed and grouped, I'm getting an error:
Error CS1061 'decimal' does not contain a definition for 'GroupBy' and no accessible extension method 'GroupBy' accepting a first argument of type 'decimal' could be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?
I've gone through almost every example on stack overflow and google and couldn't find an example that matched the structure of my query. Also, the MS examples are very trivial and are not of much use.
Here is the action in the controller:
public IHttpActionResult GetEmployeeReleasedAllocatedBonus(int eid)
{
var employeeReleasedAllocatedBonus =
(from br in _context.BonusReleases
join emp in _context.Employees
on new
{
br.EmployeeID,
empID = br.EmployeeID
} equals new
{
emp.EmployeeID,
empID = eid
}
join job in _context.Jobs on br.JobID equals job.JobID
join bonus in _context.Bonus
on new
{
br.JobID,
empID = br.EmployeeID
}
equals new
{
bonus.JobID,
empID = bonus.EmployeeID
}
select new EmployeeAllocatedReleasedBonusViewModel()
{
AllocatedToEmployee = br.Amount, AllocatedPercentage = bonus.Amount * 100
,
JobNumber = job.JobNumber, JobDescription = job.JobDescription
})
.ToList()
.Sum(s => s.AllocatedToEmployee)
.GroupBy(g => new {g.JobNumber, g.JobDescription, g.AllocatedPercentage});
return Ok(employeeReleasedAllocatedBonus);
}
It's worth mentioning that the AllocatedPercentage datatype is a decimal. However, I've tried changing it to string but the error message stays.
Also tried using the group functionality right before .ToList() but that didn't work either.

Answer 1

After ToList() you have a List<EmployeeAllocatedReleasedBonusViewModel>.
In Sum(s => s.AllocatedToEmployee), every s is one EmployeeAllocatedReleasedBonusViewModel. Apparently a EmployeeAllocatedReleasedBonusViewModel has a property AllocatedToEmployee which is probably of type decimal. This can be summed into one decimal.
The result of the Sum (a decimal) is the input of your GroupBy. Does type decimal have a method GroupBy? Of course it doesn't!
Alas you forgot to tell us your requirements. It is difficult to extract them from code that doesn't do what you want.
It seems to me that you have two one-to-many relations:
Employees have zero or more BonusReleases. Every BonusRelease belongs to exactly one Employee using foreign key
Jobs have zero or more BonusReleases. Every BonusRelease belongs to exactly one Job.
Now what do you want: do you want all JobNumbers and JobDescriptions of all Jobs with the total of their AllocatedPercentage? I'm not sure what the Employees do within this query.
Whenever you want items with their sub-items, like Schools with their Students, Customers with their Orders, Orders with their OrderLines, use GroupJoin. If you want it the other way round: Student with the School that he attends, Order with the Customer who placed the Order, use Join.
var result = dbContext.Jobs.GroupJoin(dbContext.BonusReleases,
job => job.Id, // from every Job take the primary key
bonusRelease => bonusReleas.JobId, // from every BonusRelease take the foreign key
// parameter ResultSelector: take every Job with all its BonusReleases to make a new:
(job, bonusReleasesOfThisJob) => new
{
JobNumber = job.JobNumber,
JobDescription = job.JobDescription
// do you want the total of all allocated percentages?
TotalAllocatedPercentages = bonusReleasesOfThisJob
.Select(bonus => bonus.Amount)
.Sum(),
// do something to make it a percentage
// or do you want a sequence of allocated percentages?
TotalAllocatedPercentages = bonusReleasesOfThisJob
.Select(bonus => bonus.Amount)
.ToList(),
});
Or do you want the JobNumber / JobDescription / Total allocated bonus per Employee?
var result = dbContext.Employees.GroupJoin(dbContext.BonusReleases,
employee => employee.Id, // from every Employee take the primary key
bonus => bonus.EmployeeId, // from every BonusRelease take the foreign key
(employee, bonusesOfThisEmployee) => new
{
// Employee properties:
EmployeeId = employee.Id,
EmpoyeeName = employee.Name,
// for the jobs: Join the bonusesOfThisEmployee with the Jobs:
Jobs = dbContext.Jobs.GroupJoin(bonusOfThisEmployee,
job => job.Id,
bonusOfThisEmployee => bonusOfThisEmployee.JobId,
(job, bonusesOfThisJob) => new
{
Number = job.Id,
Description = job.Description,
TotalBonus = bonusOfThisJob.Select(bonus => bonus.Amount).Sum(),
}),
});

Answer 2

Harald's comment was key - after ToList(), I had a list of . Therefore I took a step back and said what if I put the results into an anonymous object first. Then do the group by and then the sum, putting the final result into the view model. It worked. Here is the answer.
var employeeReleasedAllocatedBonus =
(from br in _context.BonusReleases
join emp in _context.Employees
on new
{
br.EmployeeID,
empID = br.EmployeeID
} equals new
{
emp.EmployeeID,
empID = eid
}
join job in _context.Jobs on br.JobID equals job.JobID
join bonus in _context.Bonus
on new
{
br.JobID,
empID = br.EmployeeID
}
equals new
{
bonus.JobID,
empID = bonus.EmployeeID
}
select new
{
AllocatedToEmployee = br.Amount
,AllocatedPercentage = bonus.Amount * 100
,JobNumber = job.JobNumber
,JobDescription = job.JobDescription
})
.GroupBy(g => new {g.JobNumber, g.JobDescription, g.AllocatedPercentage})
.Select(t => new EmployeeAllocatedReleasedBonusViewModel
{
JobNumber = t.Key.JobNumber,
JobDescription = t.Key.JobDescription,
AllocatedPercentage = t.Key.AllocatedPercentage,
AllocatedToEmployee = t.Sum(ae => ae.AllocatedToEmployee)
});