I have the following Entity Framework model which i am retrieving a number of marketing_campaign entities. A Marketing campaign can have multiple groups and each group can have multiple stores.
What i need to be able to do is select all marketing campaigns for a particular StoreId. I know how to do the query for a single nested entity e.g. Groups.SelectMany(n => n.StoresInGroups).Where(s=>s.StoreId == 2); but not sure how to nest it deep enough to get the desired result.
Edit: Clearer picture
var context = new context(); // init your context here
var query =
from sig in context.Store.Single(p=>p.StoreId = 2).StoresInGroup //filter out by particular toreId
from grp in sig.Group.Marketing_Groups
from mc in grp.MarketingCampaign
select mc;
Related
I have an Abstract type called Product, and five "Types" that inherit from Product in a table per type hierarchy fashion as below:
I want to get all of the information for all of the Products, including a smattering of properties from the different objects that inherit from products to project them into a new class for use in an MVC web page. My linq query is below:
//Return the required products
var model = from p in Product.Products
where p.archive == false && ((Prod_ID == 0) || (p.ID == Prod_ID))
select new SearchViewModel
{
ID = p.ID,
lend_name = p.Lender.lend_name,
pDes_rate = p.pDes_rate,
pDes_details = p.pDes_details,
pDes_totTerm = p.pDes_totTerm,
pDes_APR = p.pDes_APR,
pDes_revDesc = p.pDes_revDesc,
pMax_desc = p.pMax_desc,
dDipNeeded = p.dDipNeeded,
dAppNeeded = p.dAppNeeded,
CalcFields = new DAL.SearchCalcFields
{
pDes_type = p.pDes_type,
pDes_rate = p.pDes_rate,
pTFi_fixedRate = p.pTFi_fixedRate
}
}
The problem I have is accessing the p.pTFi_fixedRate, this is not returned with the Products collection of entities as it is in the super type of Fixed. How do I return the "super" type of Products (Fixed) properties using Linq and the Entity Framework. I actually need to return some fields from all the different supertypes (Disc, Track, etc) for use in calculations. Should I return these as separate Linq queries checking the type of "Product" that is returned?
This is a really good question. I've had a look in the Julie Lerman book and scouted around the internet and I can't see an elegant answer.
If it were me I would create a data transfer object will all the properties of the types and then have a separate query for each type and then union them all up. I would insert blanks into the DTO properies where the properties aren't relevant to that type. Then I would hope that the EF engine makes a reasonable stab at creating decent SQL.
Example
var results = (from p in context.Products.OfType<Disc>
select new ProductDTO {basefield1 = p.val1, discField=p.val2, fixedField=""})
.Union(
from p in context.Products.OfType<Fixed>
select new ProductDTO {basefield1 = p.val1, discField="", fixedField=p.val2});
But that can't be the best answer can it. Is there any others?
So Fixed is inherited from Product? If so, you should probably be querying for Fixed instead, and the Product properties will be pulled into it.
If you are just doing calculations and getting some totals or something, you might want to look at using a stored procedure. It will amount to fewer database calls and allow for much faster execution.
Well it depends on your model, but usually you need to do something like:
var model = from p in Product.Products.Include("SomeNavProperty")
.... (rest of query)
Where SomeNavProperty is the entity type that loads pTFi_fixedRate.
How would I translate this into LINQ?
Say I have A parent table (Say, customers), and child (addresses).
I want to return all of the Parents who have addresses in California, and just the california address. (but I want to do it in LINQ and get an object graph of Entity objects)
Here's the old fashioned way:
SELECT c.blah, a.blah
FROM Customer c
INNER JOIN Address a on c.CustomerId = a.CustomerId
where a.State = 'CA'
The problem I'm having with LINQ is that i need an object graph of concrete Entity types (and it can't be lazy loaded.
Here's what I've tried so far:
Edit: added context instantiation as requested
// this one doesn't filter the addresses -- I get the right customers, but I get all of their addresses, and not just the CA address object.
var ctx = new CustomersContext() // dbContext -- using EF 4.1
from c in ctx.Customer.Include(c => c.Addresses)
where c.Addresses.Any(a => a.State == "CA")
select c
// this one seems to work, but the Addresses collection on Customers is always null
var ctx = new CustomersContext() // dbContext -- using EF 4.1
from c in ctx.Customer.Include(c => c.Addresses)
from a in c.Addresses
where a.State == "CA"
select c;
Any ideas?
Based on the code above, it appears that you already have a rehydrated collection of Customer objects in the Customer variable.
You will need to call the Include function when you fill your Customer collection above. This way, the framework will rehydrate the included objects at the time of retrieval from your data context.
The actual query code appears good though.
I want to create an Entity Object from a LinQ statement, but I don't want to load all its columns.
My ORDERS object has a lot of columns, but I just want to retrieve the REFERENCE and OPERATION columns so the SQL statement and result will be smaller.
This LinQ statement works properly and loads all my object attributes:
var orders = (from order in context.ORDERS
select order);
However the following statement fails to load only two properties of my object
var orders = (from order in context.ORDERS
select new ORDERS
{
REFERENCE = order.REFERENCE,
OPERATION = order.OPERATION
});
The error thrown is:
The entity or complex type
'ModelContextName.ORDERS' cannot be
constructed in a LINQ to Entities
query.
What is the problem? Isn't it possible to partially load an object this way?
Thank you in advance for your answers.
ANSWER
Ok I should thank you both Yakimych and Dean because I use both of your answers, and now I have:
var orders = (from order in context.ORDERS
select new
{
REFERENCE = order.REFERENCE,
OPERATION = order.OPERATION,
})
.AsEnumerable()
.Select(o =>
(ORDERS)new ORDERS
{
REFERENCE = o.REFERENCE,
OPERATION = o.OPERATION
}
).ToList().AsQueryable();
And I get exactly what I want, the SQL Statement is not perfect but it returns only the 2 columns I need (and another column which contains for every row "1" but I don't know why for the moment) –
I also tried to construct sub objects with this method and it works well.
No, you can't project onto a mapped object. You can use an anonymous type instead:
var orders = (from order in context.ORDERS
select new
{
REFERENCE = order.REFERENCE,
OPERATION = order.OPERATION
});
The problem with the above solution is that from the moment you call AsEnumerable(), the query will get executed on the database. In most of the cases, it will be fine. But if you work with some large database, fetching the whole table(or view) is probably not what you want. So, if we remove the AsEnumerable, we are back to square 1 with the following error:
The entity or complex type 'ModelContextName.ORDERS' cannot be constructed in a LINQ to Entities query.
I have been struggling with this problem for a whole day and here is what I found. I created an empty class inheriting from my entity class and performed the projection using this class.
public sealed class ProjectedORDERS : ORDERS {}
The projected query (using covariance feature):
IQueryable<ORDERS> orders = (from order in context.ORDERS
select new ProjectedORDERS
{
REFERENCE = order.REFERENCE,
OPERATION = order.OPERATION,
});
Voilà! You now have a projected query that will map to an entity and that will get executed only when you want to.
I think the issue is creating new entities within the query itself, so how about trying this:
context.ORDERS.ToList().Select(o => new ORDERS
{
REFERENCE = o.REFERENCE,
OPERATION = o.OPERATION
});
Ok this should be really simple, but I am doing my head in here and have read all the articles on this and tried a variety of things, but no luck.
I have 3 tables in a classic many-to-many setup.
ITEMS
ItemID
Description
ITEMFEATURES
ItemID
FeatureID
FEATURES
FeatureID
Description
Now I have a search interface where you can select any number of Features (checkboxes).
I get them all nicely as an int[] called SearchFeatures.
I simply want to find the Items which have the Features that are contained in the SearchFeatures.
E.g. something like:
return db.Items.Where(x => SearchFeatures.Contains(x.ItemFeatures.AllFeatures().FeatureID))
Inside my Items partial class I have added a custom method Features() which simply returns all Features for that Item, but I still can't seem to integrate that in any usable way into the main LINQ query.
Grr, it's gotta be simple, such a 1 second task in SQL. Many thanks.
The following query will return the list of items based on the list of searchFeatures:
from itemFeature in db.ItemFeatures
where searchFeatures.Contains(itemFeature.FeatureID)
select itemFeature.Item;
The trick here is to start with the ItemFeatures table.
It is possible to search items that have ALL features, as you asked in the comments. The trick here is to dynamically build up the query. See here:
var itemFeatures = db.ItemFeatures;
foreach (var temp in searchFeatures)
{
// You will need this extra variable. This is C# magic ;-).
var searchFeature = temp;
// Wrap the collection with a filter
itemFeatures =
from itemFeature in itemFeatures
where itemFeature.FeatureID == searchFeature
select itemFeature;
}
var items =
from itemFeature in itemFeatures
select itemFeature.Item;
This is kinda theoretical question,
I was looking at someone else' code (below) and my simple solution was to instantiate the collection outside linq, but I can guess there will be cases where I'd want to instantiate the objects inside the query, and perhaps only on a selection of elements.
Here's a simplified example of how this was being done (badly).
var pods = (from n in ids
where new Node(Convert.ToInt32(n)).HasValue("propertyName")
select new
{
Id = Convert.ToInt32(n),
Url = new Node(Convert.ToInt32(n)).Url,
Name = new Node(Convert.ToInt32(n)).Title()
}).ToList();
Irrelevant Note: in this case the Node constructor is getting data from a memory cache.
How can I improve this example to only instantiate each object once using linq?
Cheers.
Murray.
Use a let clause like this:
var pods = (
from n in ids
let id = Convert.ToInt32(n)
let node = new Node(id)
where node.HasValue("propertyName")
select new
{
Id = id,
Url = node.Url,
Name = node.Title()
}
).ToList();
For more information please see let clause (C# Reference):
In a query expression, it is sometimes
useful to store the result of a
sub-expression in order to use it in
subsequent clauses. You can do this
with the let keyword, which creates a
new range variable and initializes it
with the result of the expression you
supply. Once initialized with a value,
the range variable cannot be used to
store another value. However, if the
range variable holds a queryable type,
it can be queried.