Return a column value with the input ID - linq

I was trying to return a column value in a table called with its ID .
public String PenTypes(int?id, Pen pen)
{
int num;
var query = from d in db.Pens
where d.ID == 1
select d.Type;
num=Convert.ToInt(query);
return num;
I have no clue as to where i'm going wrong. I do know its simple, but I'm really new to using Entity Framework. Any Help would be appreciated.

I suggest you to use DbSet<TEntity>.Find method if you want to get entity by id:
var pen = db.Pens.Find(id);
if (pen == null)
// handle case when pen is not found
return pen.Type; // if type is string, then you possibly need to parse it
Or you can use FirstOrDefault/SingleOrDefault:
var pen = db.Pens.FirstOrDefault(p => p.ID == id);
Your current code has several problems:
query will have type of IQueryable<T> (where T is type of pen.Type property). This value cannot be converted to integer
id should not be nullable if you are searching by primary key
if num is integer, then return type of method should be int instead of string

Related

How to create a list of child IDs

In my controller I have a method that receives a decimal value (id).
The objective of this method is to recover a list of old revisions from a database table containing work permits. Each record on this table has a WorkPermitID as a primary key and OldRevisionWorkPermitID referencing the ID of the previous version.
I have no problems when collecting the children IDs (old versions), but it raises an exception indicating that LINQ to Entities does not recognize .ToString() method.
What I'm doing wrong? I know that I need to do without converting to string (WorkPermitID is defined as numeric in the database), but I tried several ways with no success.
public ActionResult GetVersions(decimal id){
var model = new PermisosTrabajoModel();
List<string> ChildIDs = new List<string>();
var WP = OtWeb.WorkPermit.Single(q => q.WorkPermitID == id);
while (WP.OldRevisionWorkPermitID != null)
{
var child = WP.OldRevisionWorkPermitID;
ChildIDs.Add(child.ToString());
WP = OtWeb.WorkPermit.Single(q => q.WorkPermitID == child);
}
model.WPs = OtWeb.WorkPermit
.Where(q => q.DeptID == 1
&& ChildIDs.Contains(q.WorkPermitID.ToString())).ToList();
return View (model);
}
Solution1
If both of your fields are decimal... Don't use ToString(), and use a list of decimal
var model = new PermisosTrabajoModel();
var childIDs = new List<decimal>();
var WP = OtWeb.WorkPermit.Single(q => q.WorkPermitID == id);
while (WP.OldRevisionWorkPermitID != null)
{
childIDs.Add(WP.OldRevisionWorkPermitID);
WP = OtWeb.WorkPermit.Single(q => q.WorkPermitID == child);
}
model.WPs = OtWeb.WorkPermit
.Where(q => q.DeptID == 1
&& childIDs.Contains(q.WorkPermitID)).ToList();
Solution2
In linq2entities, you can use SqlFunctions.StringConvert instead of ToString() for a numeric value.
SqlFunctions.StringConvert(q.WorkPermitId)
instead of
q.WorkPermitID.ToString()
for example

How to return DateTimeOffset type with Linq

how to return DateTimeOffset with a Linq query.
I need to get a due date from a table of type DateTimeOffset
public DateTimeOffset GetLastDate(Guid Id, Guid AppId)
{
var q = from k in context.Inspections
where k.Id == Id || k.AppId == AppId
select k.Duedate;
return q;
}
cannot implicitly convert system.Linq.IQueryable to System.DateTimeOffset
The problem is that your query will return an IQueryable<T>, with the type being the type of Duedate.
If Duedate is a DateTimeOffset, you could return the first result (Where can return multiple matches) via:
var q = from k in context.Inspections
where k.Id== Id||k.AppId== AppId
select k.Duedate;
DateTimeOffset? value = q.First();
if (value.HasValue)
return value.Value;
else // found NULL in DB! Do something in this case...
throw new ApplicationException("Null offset found");
// Alternatively, you could use some default value (this uses "Now"):
// return value ?? DateTimeOffset.Now;

How to get out of repetitive if statements?

While looking though some code of the project I'm working on, I've come across a pretty hefty method which does
the following:
public string DataField(int id, string fieldName)
{
var data = _dataRepository.Find(id);
if (data != null)
{
if (data.A == null)
{
data.A = fieldName;
_dataRepository.InsertOrUpdate(data);
return "A";
}
if (data.B == null)
{
data.B = fieldName;
_dataRepository.InsertOrUpdate(data);
return "B";
}
// keep going data.C through data.Z doing the exact same code
}
}
Obviously having 26 if statements just to determine if a property is null and then to update that property and do a database call is
probably very naive in implementation. What would be a better way of doing this unit of work?
Thankfully C# is able to inspect and assign class members dynamically, so one option would be to create a map list and iterate over that.
public string DataField(int id, string fieldName)
{
var data = _dataRepository.Find(id);
List<string> props = new List<string>();
props.Add("A");
props.Add("B");
props.Add("C");
if (data != null)
{
Type t = typeof(data).GetType();
foreach (String entry in props) {
PropertyInfo pi = t.GetProperty(entry);
if (pi.GetValue(data) == null) {
pi.SetValue(data, fieldName);
_dataRepository.InsertOrUpdate(data);
return entry;
}
}
}
}
You could just loop through all the character from 'A' to 'Z'. It gets difficult because you want to access an attribute of your 'data' object with the corresponding name, but that should (as far as I know) be possible through the C# reflection functionality.
While you get rid of the consecutive if-statements this still won't make your code nice :P
there is a fancy linq solution for your problem using reflection:
but as it was said before: your datastructure is not very well thought through
public String DataField(int id, string fieldName)
{
var data = new { Z = "test", B="asd"};
Type p = data.GetType();
var value = (from System.Reflection.PropertyInfo fi
in p.GetProperties().OrderBy((fi) => fi.Name)
where fi.Name.Length == 1 && fi.GetValue(data, null) != null
select fi.Name).FirstOrDefault();
return value;
}
ta taaaaaaaaa
like that you get the property but the update is not yet done.
var data = _dataRepository.Find(id);
If possible, you should use another DataType without those 26 properties. That new DataType should have 1 property and the Find method should return an instance of that new DataType; then, you could get rid of the 26 if in a more natural way.
To return "A", "B" ... "Z", you could use this:
return (char)65; //In this example this si an "A"
And work with some transformation from data.Value to a number between 65 and 90 (A to Z).
Since you always set the lowest alphabet field first and return, you can use an additional field in your class that tracks the first available field. For example, this can be an integer lowest_alphabet_unset and you'd update it whenever you set data.{X}:
Init:
lowest_alphabet_unset = 0;
In DataField:
lowest_alphabet_unset ++;
switch (lowest_alphabet_unset) {
case 1:
/* A is free */
/* do something */
return 'A';
[...]
case 7:
/* A through F taken */
data.G = fieldName;
_dataRepository.InsertOrUpdate(data);
return 'G';
[...]
}
N.B. -- do not use, if data is object rather that structure.
what comes to my mind is that, if A-Z are all same type, then you could theoretically access memory directly to check for non null values.
start = &data;
for (i = 0; i < 26; i++){
if ((typeof_elem) *(start + sizeof(elem)*i) != null){
*(start + sizeof(elem)*i) = fieldName;
return (char) (65 + i);
}
}
not tested but to give an idea ;)

EF single entity problem

I need to return a single instance of my viewmodel class from my repository in order to feed this into a strongly-typed view
In my repository, this works fine for a collection of viewmodel instances:
IEnumerable<PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section> ISectionsRepository.GetSectionsByArea(int AreaId)
{
var _sections = from s in DataContext.Sections where s.AreaId == AreaId orderby s.Ordinal ascending select s;
return _sections.Select(x => new PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section()
{
SectionId = x.SectionId,
Title = x.Title,
UrlTitle = x.UrlTitle,
NavTitle = x.NavTitle,
AreaId = x.AreaId,
Ordinal = x.Ordinal
}
);
}
But when I attempt to obtain a single entity, like this:
public PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section GetSection(int SectionId)
{
var _section = from s in DataContext.Sections where s.SectionId == SectionId select s;
return _section.Select(x => new PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section()
{
SectionId = x.SectionId,
Title = x.Title,
UrlTitle = x.UrlTitle,
NavTitle = x.NavTitle,
AreaId = x.AreaId,
Ordinal = x.Ordinal
}
);
}
I get
Error 1 Cannot implicitly convert type
'System.Linq.IQueryable<PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section>' to
'PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section'. An explicit conversion exists
(are you missing a cast?)"
This has got to be simple, but I'm new to c#, and I can't figure out the casting. I tried (PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section) in various places, but no success. Can anyone help??
Your query is returning an IQueryable, which could have several items. For example, think of the difference between an Array or List of objects and a single object. It doesn't know how to convert the List to a single object, which one should it take? The first? The last?
You need to tell it specifically to only take one item.
e.g.
public PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section GetSection(int SectionId)
{
var _section = from s in DataContext.Sections where s.SectionId == SectionId select s;
return _section.Select(x => new PAWeb.Domain.Entities.Section()
{
SectionId = x.SectionId,
Title = x.Title,
UrlTitle = x.UrlTitle,
NavTitle = x.NavTitle,
AreaId = x.AreaId,
Ordinal = x.Ordinal
}
).FirstOrDefault();
}
This will either return the first item, or null if there are no items that match your query. In your case that won't happen unless the table is empty since you don't have a where clause.

Need Help Translating SQL Server UNION Syntax to LINQ

I have the below SQL which works just fine:
SELECT Message, CreateDate, AccountId, AlertTypeId
FROM dbo.Alerts
UNION
SELECT TOP (100) PERCENT Status, CreateDate, AccountId,
(SELECT 10 AS Expr1) AS AlertTypeId
FROM dbo.StatusUpdates
WHERE AccountId = PassedInParameter
ORDER BY CreateDate DESC
I am trying to convert it to LINQ, which doesn't work just fine :) Obviously, there is a lot wrong here - it is just a rough start. It does not account for the above temp column or the order by condition and the generics / return type ambiguity is my attempt to make sense of the two different return types:
public List<T> GetSomething<T>(Int32 accountId)
{
List<T> result;
using (DataContext dc = _conn.GetContext())
{
IEnumerable<Alert> alerts = (from a in dc.Alerts
where a.AccountId == accountId
select a);
IEnumerable<StatusUpdate> updates = (from s in dc.StatusUpdates
where s.AccountId == accountId
select s);
IEnumerable<T> obj = alerts.Union(updates);
result = obj.ToList();
}
return result;
}
The problems I am having are:
1) I am dealing with two different types (Alerts and StatusUpdate) in my selects and
I am not sure how to combine them (or what type to return). I am guessing this might
be solved with generics?
2) In my SQL, I have this code: (SELECT 10 AS Expr1) AS AlertTypeId which adds the value ten to the temp column AlertTypeId (allowing the union to match it to Alert's real column AlertTypeId). How are temp columns such as this accomplished in LINQ / how do I do this?
Thanks for your help.
EDIT---------------------------------EDIT------------------------------------------EDIT
OK, I am a little further along. Below is what I have currently. You will notice I added some logic to return the updates for friend relations. I also made this a generic method of type IList given that alerts and updates have to be generic to agree. I pass in StatusUpdate in the calling method (further down below).
public IList GetUpdatesByAccountId<T>(Int32 accountId)
{
List<Friend> friends = _friendRepository.GetFriendsByAccountId(accountId);
using (DataContext dc = _conn.GetContext())
{
// Get all the account ids related to this user
var friendAccountIds =
friends.Select(friend => friend.MyFriendsAccountId).Distinct();
friendAccountIds = friendAccountIds.Concat(new[] { accountId });
var updates =
dc.StatusUpdates.Where(s => s.AccountId.HasValue && friendAccountIds.Contains(s.AccountId.Value)).Select(
s => new { Alert = (Alert)null, StatusUpdate = s});
var alerts =
dc.Alerts.Where(a => a.AccountId == accountId).Select(
a => new {Alert = a, StatusUpdate = (StatusUpdate) null});
var obj = updates.Union(alerts).Take(100);
return obj.OrderByDescending(su => su.StatusUpdate.CreateDate).ToList();
}
}
And, the calling method:
protected void LoadStatus()
{
repStatusUpdates.DataSource = _statusRepository
.GetUpdatesByAccountId<StatusUpdate>(_userSession.CurrentUser.AccountId);
repStatusUpdates.DataBind();
}
AND here are the interfaces to the repositories I am using to access my Alert and StatusUpdate tables via LINQ:
public interface IAlertRepository
{
List<Alert> GetAlertsByAccountId(Int32 accountId);
void SaveAlert(Alert alert);
void DeleteAlert(Alert alert);
}
public interface IStatusUpdateRepository
{
StatusUpdate GetStatusUpdateById(Int32 statusUpdateId);
List<StatusUpdate> GetStatusUpdatesByAccountId(Int32 accountId);
List<StatusUpdate> GetFriendStatusUpdatesByAccountId(Int32 accountId, Boolean addPassedInAccount);
void SaveStatusUpdate(StatusUpdate statusUpdate);
List<StatusUpdate> GetTopNStatusUpdatesByAccountId(Int32 accountId, Int32 number);
List<StatusUpdate> GetTopNFriendStatusUpdatesByAccountId(Int32 accountId, Int32 number, Boolean addPassedInAccount);
}
Current Problems:
1) When I compile this code, I get this strange error:
Unable to cast object of type
'System.Data.Linq.SqlClient.SqlNew' to
type
'System.Data.Linq.SqlClient.SqlValue'.
The only reading I can find on it is this link although there isn't a clear solution there (at least that I can tell). However, if the above LINQ code does not look good to you, maybe whatever you suggest will cause this error to disappear.
2) The above code is still not accounting for this line from the original SQL:
(SELECT 10 AS Expr1) AS AlertTypeId
but this is minor.
Thanks again for the help.
Try this (i converted the StatusUpdate to an alert, if this isn't acceptable, you're going to have to either convert the Alert to a StatusUpdate, or create a new class):
var alerts = (from a in dc.Alerts
where a.AccountId == accountId
select a);
var updates = (from s in dc.StatusUpdates
where s.AccountId == accountId
select s)
.OrderByDescending( x => x.CreateDate)
.Take(100)
.Select( x => new Alert
{
Message = x.Percent.ToString(),
CreateDate = x.CreateDate,
AccountId = x.AccountId,
AlertTypeId = 10 // Is this right?
}
);
var obj = alerts.Union(updates);
result = obj.ToList();
The reason I do the Select last is so that you don't have to construct a new alert for all the results your are not using.
This will give you a list of Alerts.
Using a generic in this situation is sort of hard to pull off. For instance, you can't do this:
IQueryable alerts = (from a in _alerts
where a.AccountId == accountId
select a);
Because that implicitly converts a to type T. Even if you try to limit what T implements or inherits from:
public List<T> GetSomething<T>(Int32 accountId) where T : IAlert// Interface that both StatusUpdates and IAlert implement
public List<T> GetSomething<T>(Int32 accountId) where T : Alert
public List<T> GetSomething<T>(Int32 accountId) where T : AlertBase // Base class for both Status and Alert
You'll still run into problems because there is no way to statically know exactly what type T is, so you cannot know if it can be converted from Alert and StatusUpdate.
An alternative is to explicitly use IAlert as your return type:
public List<IAlert> GetSomething(Int32 accountId)
With IAlert:
public interface IAlert
{
int AccountId { get; set; }
int AlertTypeId { get; set; }
DateTime CreateDate { get; set; }
string Message { get; set; }
}
If you have have both Alert and StatusUpdate implement IAlert, you could rewrite it as so:
IQueryable<IAlert> alerts = (from a in dc.Alerts
where a.AccountId == accountId
select a);
IQueryable<IAlert> updates = (from s in dc.StatusUpdates
where s.AccountId == accountId
select s)
.OrderByDescending( x => x.CreateDate)
.Take(100);
var obj = alerts.Union(updates);
result = obj.ToList();
This is the route I would take instead of passing in some unknown type and trying to limit what it implements or inherits, because casting to that type might still be invalid.
You can only take unions of sequences of equal types. You need to convert alerts and updates to sequences of a common type, then take the union. You can do so using anonymous types. Especially useful if the types don't have anything in common.
//this is a hack and probably not what you would want to use.
var alerts =
from a in dc.Alerts
where a.AccountId == accountId
select new { Alert = a, StatusUpdate = (StatusUpdate)null };
var updates =
from s in dc.StatusUpdates
where s.AccountId == accountId
select new { Alert = (Alert)null, StatusUpdate = s };
//both are sequences of anonymous type with properties:
// Alert (of type Alert)
// StatusUpdate (of type StatusUpdate)
var obj = alerts.Union(updates);
If you have fields in common, you'd still use anonymous types except you'd include the known fields.
var alerts =
from a in dc.Alerts
where a.AccountId == accountId
select new
{
a.Message, //assuming is a string
Status = (string)null,
a.CreateDate,
a.AccountId,
a.AlertTypeId //assuming is an int
};
var updates =
(from s in dc.StatusUpdates
where s.AccountId == accountId
select new
{
Message = (string)null,
s.Status, //assuming is a string
s.CreateDate,
s.AccountId,
AlertTypeId = 10 //this should handle the "10 AS AlertTypeId" part
}).OrderByDescending(s => s.CreateDate);
var obj = alerts.Union(updates);
The key is that both anonymous types has the same exact properties of the same exact types. Then you can take the union between them both.

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