DbContext EntitySet null when entities are set to internal access - dbcontext

I want the db set to be internal in order to ensure external packages only have access to and program against the interface not the concrete class
e.g.
namespace Domain
{
public interface IProduct
{
string Description { get; }
int Id { get; }
decimal Price { get; }
}
}
//Separate Person.cs file for custom logic
namespace Domain
{
internal partial class Product :IProduct
{
}
}
internal partial class POS : DbContext
{
public POS()
: base("name=POS")
{
}
internal DbSet<Product> Products { get; set; }
}
//The other Person.cs file is generated by the .tt file
//_context.People is null which caused the dreaded null pointer exception :(
var people = _context.People.ToList();
As soon as I set the access to the Person class and People entity set to public via the Model Browser it works again, but I want to restrict the access to internal for package encapsulation.
It worked with Context in VS2010 EF but not with DbContext in VS2012.
Any help is much appreciated :}
P.S.
For now I have just edited the .tt file as below
public <#=code.Escape(container)#>()
: base("name=<#=container.Name#>")
{
Products = Set<Product>();
This generates the context class as below which instantiates the set, it would be nice to not have to add this to the .tt file for every entity set in the model.
internal partial class POS : DbContext
{
public POS()
: base("name=POS")
{
Products = Set<Product>();
}

I know this question is old but I just ran into this issue as well. According to a number of other StackOverflow posts, this is still the behavior of EntityFramework and the solution is still to explicitly Set<> the entity sets.
That said, instead of having to manually add each entity name to the .tt file, I created some code that will cause the TT file to automatically generate this code for each entity.
In the *.Context.tt file, you should spot the code for the constructor that looks something like this:
public <#=code.Escape(container)#>()
: base("name=<#=container.Name#>")
{
<#
if (!loader.IsLazyLoadingEnabled(container))
{
#>
this.Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = false;
<#
}
#>
}
Modify this so it now looks like:
public <#=code.Escape(container)#>()
: base("name=<#=container.Name#>")
{
<#
if (!loader.IsLazyLoadingEnabled(container))
{
#>
this.Configuration.LazyLoadingEnabled = false;
<#
}
#>
<#
foreach (var entitySet in container.BaseEntitySets.OfType<EntitySet>())
{
#>
<#=codeStringGenerator.SetStatement(entitySet)#>
<#
}
#>
}
Further down in the file you should see a class definition for the CodeStringGenerator class, add a new method (I added mine directly under the DbSet method definition around line 307):
public string SetStatement(EntitySet entitySet)
{
return string.Format(
CultureInfo.InvariantCulture,
"{0} = Set<{1}>();",
_code.Escape(entitySet),
_typeMapper.GetTypeName(entitySet.ElementType));
}
When you save the template it should regenerate the DbContext class with the Set<> statements for each entity in your model. New entities that are added will re-trigger the template generation and those new entities will also be included in the constructor.

Related

How to create dynamic, multiple partial views using repository pattern in MVC

I am trying to have a general home page that depending on the parameter passed to the control, different content (modules) will be displayed.
For example, a user may select Kentucky from the menu and the id for Kentucky is 1. The home controller gets the id (1) and determines the possible modules for that
state (a simple db call.) Perhaps there is an announcements module and a contacts module for the state. An announcements module could have several items but it's only one module. There would be a partial view for each type of module.
Here is the basic setup I have.
public interface IModuleRepository
{
IList<MenuItemModule> GetMenuItemModules(int menuItem);
IList<Announcements> GetAnnouncements(int modID);
IList<News> GetNews(int modID);
IList<Contacts> GetContacts(int modID);
}
//business object
public class MenuItemModule
{
private int _MenuItemID;
private int _ModuleID;
private int _ModuleDefID;
private string _Src;
private int _ModuleOrder;
//get, set properties for these...
}
//announcements entity
public class Announcements
{
private int _ID = -1;
private int _MenuItemID = -1;
private int _ModuleID = -1;
private string _Description = string.Empty;
//get set props ...
}
In my home controller...
public class HomeController : Controller
{
private IModuleRepository modRepository;
public HomeController(IModuleRepository modRepository)
{
this.modRepository = modRepository;
}
public ViewResult Item(string ItemID)
{
//returns a list of menuitemmodules for the page. This gives me the Src or name of each
//module on the page, i.e. Announcements, news, contacts, etc.
var modules = modRepository.GetMenuItemModules(Convert.ToInt32(ItemID));
return View(modules);
}
}
I have tried several different models to return but I always run up against some contstraint. If I pass the menuitemmodules to my Item.aspx, then I can do something like this:
foreach (var mod in Model)
{
Html.RenderPartial(mod.Src, a); //needs an announcement object though
}
That makes it somewhat dynamic because I have the Src which would basically be something like "Announcements" and I can just create an announcements.ascx partial to process the module. But I have found it difficult to pass my menuitemmodule and an announcements entity as well.
I have also messed around with passing a more complex object and then testing every Src that comes through with an If statement. This would make scaling difficult in the future as I increase the number of possible modules in the app.
How can I solve my problem? I hope I have provided enough info. I like the basic idea here - http://www.mikesdotnetting.com/Article/105/ASP.NET-MVC-Partial-Views-and-Strongly-Typed-Custom-ViewModels but that seems to only work for static modules on a page.
I did try a composite view model called ModuleViewModel. Here is that attempt:
public class ModuleViewModel
{
public IList<Announcements> announcements { get; set; }
public IList<MenuItemModule> mods { get; set; }
}
If I pass that model to the Item.aspx I can do something like this (but I must be doing something wrong because something doesn't look right.)
foreach (var mod in Model)
{
if (mod.announcements.Count > 0)
{
Html.RenderPartial("Announcements", mod.announcements);
}
}
Once again, scalability is going to haunt me. I would like to have something like this on item page:
foreach (var mod in Model)
{
Html.RenderPartial(mod.Src, mod);
}
That would the correct partial view and pass it the correct model.
Create Module classes that derive from a common Module base class:
public class AnnouncementsModule : Module
{
}
public class ContactsModule : Module
{
}
In controller:
Create your various modules and put them into your overall view module (here it has a property called Modules that is an array of Module:
var viewModel = new ComplexViewModel
{
Modules = new []
{
new ContactsModule(),
new AnnouncementsModule()
}
};
return View(viewModule);
In view:
#Html.DisplayFor(x => x.Modules);
Create the partial views for each Type of Module in the appropriate 'Shared` folder. (Run it without creating them and it will show you an exception with the locations where it's looking for them).
After messing around with this for over a week, I finally managed to figure out how MVC can do what I want dynamically. I decided to post my solution for others that are new to MVC. Hopefully, the following will clear up the misunderstandings I had (although, at this point in my understanding of MVC, I cannot say this is the best approach.)
I will include the previous code snips and modifications for clarity:
public interface IModuleRepository
{
IList<MenuItemModule> GetMenuItemModules(int menuItem);
IList<Announcements> GetAnnouncements(int modID);
IList<News> GetNews(int modID);
IList<Contacts> GetContacts(int modID);
}
//business object
public class MenuItemModule
{
private int _MenuItemID;
private int _ModuleID;
private int _ModuleDefID;
private string _Src;
private int _ModuleOrder;
//get, set properties for these...
}
//announcements entity
public class Announcements : MenuItemModule
{
private int _ID = -1;
private string _Description = string.Empty;
//get set props ...
}
I also added another class:
public class AnnouncementModule : MenuItemModule
{
private IList<Announcements> _Announcements;
//get set prop
}
...and I created a model for the view
public class HomeItemViewModel
{
public MenuItemModule[] MenuItemModules { get; set; } //collection of menuitemmodules
}
In my home controller...
var menuItemModules = modRepository.GetMenuItemModules(ItemID);
if (menuItemModules.Count > 0)
{
AnnouncementModule aMod;
MenuItemModule[] mods = new MenuItemModule[menuItemModules.Count()];
int i = 0;
//loop through each MenuItemModule assign to the appropriate model
foreach (MenuItemModule mod in menuItemModules)
{
if (mod.Src == "Announcements")
{
aMod = new AnnouncementModule();
aMod.Announcements = modRepository.GetAnnouncements(mod.ModuleID);
//now add this to the menuitemmodule collection
mods[i] = aMod;
}
if (mod.Src == "Contacts")
{
//...
}
i++;
}
}
var viewModel = new HomeItemViewModel
{
MenuItemModules = mods
};
return View(viewModel);
Then I used the suggestion to use DisplayFor in the view. The view is strongly typed to HomeItemViewModel.
<%: Html.DisplayFor(m => m.MenuItemModules) %>
This iterates through the collection and based on the type, it will call that template. In this example, it calls AnnouncementModule.ascx which is strongly typed to AnnouncementModule.
foreach (var a in Model.Announcements)
{
//a.Description will give us the description of the announcement
}
I realize there are slicker ways to code the controller, and I plan on refactoring, but this skeleton should provide the basics to solve the question I posted.

Associating entities, not creating, with many-to-many relationships in EF Code First MVC3

In MVC3 Code First EF how do you associate one entity with another without creating a new one (many-to-many)?
So I have a many-to-many relationship between class1 and class2. I need class1 to hold many class2 and vice versa. However, class2 is independent; I have a list of them that I want to edit separately and then associate with a new class1.
When I pass my class2List to the controller( via AJAX and JSON), I checked and all the Ids of the class2s correspond to existing ids in the db, i.e. new class2s are not created.
Model
class
{
[key]
public int Id {set; get;}
}
class1 : class
{
private ICollection<class2> _class2s;
public virtual ICollection<class2> class2s
{
get { return _class2s ?? ( _class2s = new HashSet<class2>()); }
set { _class2s = value; }
}
}
class2 : class
{
private ICollection<class1> _class1s;
public virtual ICollection<class1> class1s
{
get { return _class1s ?? ( _class1s = new HashSet<class1>()); }
set { _class1s = value; }
}
}
Controller
public ActionResult SaveChanges(List<class2> class2List)
{
createNewClass2AndAssociateExistingClass2s(class2List);
SaveChangesToDb();
return View("ProductDetail", Model);
}
createNewClass2AndAssociateExistingClass2s(List<class2> class2List)
{
var newClass1 = newClass1()
{
class2s = class2List;
}
////UnitOfWork allows me to access several DbSets in one transaction
unitOfWork.Create(newClass1)
}
SaveChangesToDb()
{
unitOfWork.Commit();
}
What this does is create a new class1 (as it should) but instead of associating the existing class2s with it, it makes new class2s with new Ids and adds them to the database.
My question:
Does this have to do with how EF is reading my Id property from base class?
How would I be able to associate several existing class2s as a list with a new class1, without creating new class2s in the database?
Cheers
Ok so two things I learned from figuring this out:
I was inheriting from an abstract class when I should have been implementing an interface. This is a great idea if you have several entities that have a similar property such as "Id" and you want to do something like
T FindById<T>(int id) where T : IEntity
When making associations in EF, even if the Id matches an existing entry, it will not update that entry, unless EF is tracking that entry in the context, as it says here. What I needed to do was:
Add a method in the mapping layer that gets the entry by id that I
want from the repository
Copy the attributes of the new entry into that context entry
Return the context entry
Hope this helps someone

Getting a reference to the AsCached property in the ObjectContext for Entity Framework 4.1

I have my ObjectContext exposed as a public property and am able to access it via my DBContext.
I want to enable caching for a drop down list. It requires the AsCached property. However, I can't get it to display in the intellisense. Do I need to include a specific namespace for it?
Here is my existing LINQ statement that I want cached.
IQueryable<Category> category = DbContext.Categories.Where(p => p.CategoryID > 0);
I'm tying to do something like this. Note though, that there is no intellisense when placing the "." after Objectcontext.
IQueryable<Category> category = DbContext.Objectcontext.Categories.AsCached.Where(p => p.CategoryID > 0);
The ObjectContext pops up in the intellisense, but not the AsCached property.
How can I get the AsCached property to appear?
Are you referring to the AsCached property described here Getting a reference to the AsCached property? In which case it seems to be an extension to the EF called linqtocache.
EDIT
I do not think you need to expose ObjectContext. Say you have a DbContext that looks like this:
public class DatabaseContext : DbContext
{
public DatabaseContext(string name) : base(name)
{
As = Set<A>();
}
public DbSet<A> As { get; private set; }
}
AsCached, in the context of linqtocache, is an extension method on IQueryable so in your code that calls it you can get access to the AsCached property by doing this:
using LinqToCache;
namespace MyApplication
{
class Program
{
static void Main()
{
var ctx = new DatabaseContext("ScalabilityTestEntities");
ctx.As.AsCached("Key").Where(p => p.CategoryID > 0);
}
}
}

How do I remove format from Linq property?

I´m building a Windows Forms aplication using LINQ to SQL. I´m using the auto generated code from the
dbml file.
Visual studio generated this code for the CNPJ property from my table:
[global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.ColumnAttribute(Storage="_CNPJ", DbType="VarChar(20) NOT NULL", CanBeNull=false)]
public string CNPJ
{
get
{
return this._CNPJ;
}
set
{
if ((this._CNPJ != value))
{
this.OnCNPJChanging(value);
this.SendPropertyChanging();
this._CNPJ = value;
this.SendPropertyChanged("CNPJ");
this.OnCNPJChanged();
}
}
}
and what I wanted is this:
[global::System.Data.Linq.Mapping.ColumnAttribute(Storage="_CNPJ", DbType="VarChar(20) NOT NULL", CanBeNull=false)]
public string CNPJ
{
get
{
return APPLY_FORMAT(this._CNPJ);//Changed here
}
set
{
if ((this._CNPJ != value))
{
this.OnCNPJChanging(value);
this.SendPropertyChanging();
this._CNPJ = REMOVE_FORMAT(value); /// Changed here
this.SendPropertyChanged("CNPJ");
this.OnCNPJChanged();
}
}
}
But I will lose this changes when the code is re-generated.
Question is: what is the right way to accomplish this behavior (inherit and override, capture change event, other ) ?
if you´re curious, CNPJ is the brazilin business identification number, provided by the government.
Rather than trying to change the existing property, create a new property.
public partial class YourClass
{
public string FORMATTED_CNPJ
{
get
{
return APPLY_FORMAT(this._CNPJ);
}
set
{
this.CNPJ = REMOVE_FORMAT(value);
}
}
}
If you don't want anyone to access the underlying CNPJ property you can set it to private in the designer (the access modifier combobox in the column properties window). You can even rename that property to _CNPJ, make it private, and then name your 'wrapper' property above CNPJ if you want to avoid any breaking changes.
LINQ to SQL creates the classes as partial classes. You can create another partial class in a different file but with the same class name and then you can change the behaviour.
public partial class YourClass
{
partial void OnCNPJChanged()
{
this._CNPJ = REMOVE_FORMAT(value);
}
}
See here for more information.

Do i need to create automapper createmap both ways?

This might be a stupid question! (n00b to AutoMapper and time-short!)
I want to use AutoMapper to map from EF4 entities to ViewModel classes.
1) If I call
CreateMap<ModelClass, ViewModelClass>()
then do I also need to call
CreateMap<ViewModelClass, ModelClass>()
to perform the reverse?
2) If two classes have the same property names, then do I need a CreateMap statement at all, or is this just for "specific/custom" mappings?
For the info of the people who stumble upon this question. There appears to be now a built-in way to achieve a reverse mapping by adding a .ReverseMap() call at the end of your CreateMap() configuration chain.
In AutoMapper you have a Source type and a Destination type. So you will be able to map between this Source type and Destination type only if you have a corresponding CreateMap. So to answer your questions:
You don't need to define the reverse mapping. You have to do it only if you intend to map back.
Yes, you need to call CreateMap to indicate that those types are mappable otherwise an exception will be thrown when you call Map<TSource, TDest> telling you that a mapping doesn't exist between the source and destination type.
I've used an extension method do mapping both ways
public static IMappingExpression<TDestination, TSource> BothWays<TSource, TDestination>
(this IMappingExpression<TSource, TDestination> mappingExpression)
{
return Mapper.CreateMap<TDestination, TSource>();
}
usage:
CreateMap<Source, Dest>().BothWays();
Yes, or you can call CreateMap<ModelClass, ViewModelClass>().ReverseMap().
If two classes have same Member(Property,Field,GetMethod()), you needn't call CreateMap<TSrc,TDest>. Actually, if every member in TDest are all exist in TSrc, you needn't call CreateMap<TSrc,TDest>. The following code works.
class Person
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Age { get; set; }
}
class Person2
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int? Age { get; set; }
public DateTime BirthTime { get; set; }
}
public class NormalProfile : Profile
{
public NormalProfile()
{
//CreateMap<Person2, Person>();//
}
}
var cfg = new MapperConfiguration(c =>
{
c.AddProfile<NormalProfile>();
});
//cfg.AssertConfigurationIsValid();
var mapper = cfg.CreateMapper();
var s3 = mapper.Map<Person>(new Person2 { Name = "Person2" });

Resources