Fetch single value with linq projection query without using FirstOrDefualt - linq

Question

I am using Entity Framework and this is my view model:
public class UserDetailsModel:CityModel
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Fullname { get; set; }
}
public class VendorInCategoryModel
{
public int CategoryId { get; set; }
public int VendorId { get; set; }
public virtual CategoryMasterModel CategoryMaster { get; set; }
public virtual UserDetailsModel UserDetails { get; set; }
}
public class CategoryMasterModel
{
public int CategoryId { get; set; }
public string CategoryName { get; set; }
}
This is my query to fetch vendor details along with category details of particular vendor say v001:
UserDetailsModel workerDetails = context.UserDetails.
Where(d => d.Id == _vendorId).
Select(d => new UserDetailsModel
{
Id = d.Id,
Fullname = d.Fullname,
CategoryId = d.VendorInCategory.Select(v => v.CategoryId).FirstOrDefault(),
}).SingleOrDefault();
Here I have used FirstOrDefault to fetch categoryId (that is single value)
But I don't want to use FirstOrDefault as I have used in so many queries and it is giving me wrong output in some cases. So that the reason why I don't want to use FirstOrDefault.
When I have written SingleOrDefualt in place of FirstOrDefault it is throwing me error
that use FirstOrDefault.
So how to overcome this? Can anybody please help me?

Answer 1

It looks like maybe your outer select is capable of returning multiple results (e.g. if there are more than one UserDetailsModel with the same Id). If it returns multiple results then your call to .SingleOrDefault() will throw an exception as it expects only a single result or no results. See LINQ: When to use SingleOrDefault vs. FirstOrDefault() with filtering criteria for more details.