MVC Using relationships Database first - model-view-controller

Question

First off I have a list of movies setup from a database working fine on localhost/movies
However I wanted to go a step further so I created an Actors page, I now list all the Actors to ( On their own just their names )
What I want to do is you have for example -
Leonardo DiCaprio (id = 1)
I would like to check the page to see if the id matches him etc ( This is already done as you will see in code below )
Next I would like All his movies he has been in to be shown in another row on the table. As you can see VIA This screenshot
http://gyazo.com/ae193d80e7a39969116f76ab6568f38e.png
Instead of just the movies he has starred in they all show up, as you can see below I made a relationship between tables Actor & Movie & ActorsMovies, just linking the Ids
I have 3 tables setup like the following:
Movies -
Id (PK),
Name
Actor:
Id(PK),
Name
ActorsInMovies:
MovieId(PK),
ActorId(PK)
Here is my controller:
public ActionResult Movies( int id )
{
var model = MoviesViewModel(); //Create our model
model.PageTitle = = actor.Name + "'s' Movies"; // set page title to actors name
model.Actorname = actor.Name; // I do this to ensure the name always matches the id
var items = db.Movies.OrderBy(i => i.Name).AsQueryable(); //Link items to Movies DB and make it queryable ( as I want to use pagedLists later when its working )
if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(actor.Name)) //if name is not null
{
items = items.Where( a => a.Id == id );//I already know this is wrong but I dont know what the correct process is I think the theory part behind it I understand, here I need to check the relationships to ensure that the actor matches with the movies I just am unsure how to do it.
}
model.MovieList = items.ToList();
return View(model);
}
and my views is just a normal table with foreach loop in ( im gonna remove the Html so it doesnt get to messy:
#foreach (var item in Model.MovieList)
{
<tr>
<td>#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => Model.Actorname)</td>
<td>
<!-- MS:This part populates the table row-->
#Html.DisplayFor(modelItem => item.Name)
</td>
<td>
#Html.ActionLink("Edit", "Edit", new { id = item.Id }, new { #class = "btn btn-default" })
#Html.ActionLink("Details", "Details", new { id = item.Id }, new { #class = "btn btn-default" })
#Html.ActionLink("Delete", "Delete", new { id = item.Id }, new { #class = "btn btn-danger" })
</td>
</tr>
}

Answer 1

The easiest way to map many-to-many relationships in MVC and to also limit the number of database queries, is like below. This also does pagination, since you mentioned the desire.
MovieActor schema: (many-to-many map of Movie and Actor)
ID (PK)
ActorID (FK to Actor.ID)
MovieID (FK to Movie.ID)
CharacterName
Controller:
const int Rows = 50; // put this wherever appropriate, or customize and save in Session
/// <summary>
/// This shows all the Movies the given Actor was in.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="id">Actor ID</param>
/// <param name="page">Page of Movies to display, starting at 1</param>
public ActionResult Movies(int id, int page = 1)
{
// get the actor
Actor actor = MyDataContext.GetActorByID(id); // one database call
// get the actor's movies
List<Movie> movies = MyDataContext
.GetMoviesByActorID(actor.id) // no database call
.Skip((page - 1) * Rows)
.Take(Rows); // one database call
// build the view model
// NOTE: could move this into a constructor MoviesViewModel(actor, movies)
var viewModel = MoviesViewModel
{
PageTitle = actor.Name + "'s Movies",
ActorName = actor.Name,
Movies = movies
};
// show the view
return View(model);
}
Model:
public partial class MyDataContext
{
public Actor GetActorByID(int id)
{
return Actors.FirstOrDefault(x => x.ID == id)
}
public IQueryable<List<Movie>> GetMoviesByActorID(int actorID)
{
return Movies.Where(x => x.MovieActor.ActorID == actorID);
}
}
And the view is like any normal IEnumerable or List.