Entity Framework: Navigational properties - Code First - c#

Man I am having a heck of a time today trying to get this to work. I think I'm missing something in terms of a navigational property.
My controller. When I put a breakpoint at foo = 5, and I look at the local watch window, "listOfComments" has zero elements even though my database has the information listed(see below)
public ActionResult CommentsList()
{
var post = _db.GetPost(5);
List<Comment> listOfComments = post.Comments.ToList();
var foo = 5;
return View(post);
}
GetPost method
public Post GetPost(int? postId)
{
var context = DataContext;
var post = context.Posts.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Id == postId);
if (post == null)
{
return new Post();
}
return post;
}
Comment class
public class Comment
{
public int Id { get; set; }
[Required]
public DateTime Date { get; set; }
[Required]
public string Name { get; set; }
[Required]
public string Email { get; set; }
[Required]
public string Body { get; set; }
//Navigational
public Post Post { get; set; }
}
Post class
public class Post
{
public Post()
{
Comments = new HashSet<Comment>();
Tags = new HashSet<Tag>();
}
public int Id { get; set; }
[Required]
public string Title { get; set; }
[Required]
public DateTime Date { get; set; }
[Required]
public string Body { get; set; }
//Navigational
public ICollection<Comment> Comments { get; set; }
public ICollection<Tag> Tags { get; set; }
}
My DbContext class
public class HundredBlog: DbContext
{
public HundredBlog() : base("HundredBlog") { }
public DbSet<Post> Posts { get; set; }
public DbSet<Comment> Comments { get; set; }
public DbSet<Administrator> Administrators { get; set; }
public DbSet<Tag> Tags { get; set; }
}
The Database table, "Comments" has the following columns:
-Id
-Date
-Name
-Email
-Body
-Post_Id
The Database table, "Posts" has the following columns:
-Id
-Title
-Date
-Body
Just as an example, my Database populates the Comments columns just fine, it adds the right Post_Id referencing the primary key and all. I have the same issue with the Tag table, but that even has it's own reference table:
The Database table, "TagPosts" has the following columns:
-TagId
-PostId
Lost please help!

The Comments collection in the Post class should be virtual if you want to enable lazy loading or you should use Include(p => p.Comments) to load the data with the original query. In general the second option is better.

Related

Retrieving count from a list of objects

I have a list of comments as a parameter to each lesson on my website. I have tried a number of different ways (shown below) to retrieve the number of comments. The structure of my Model looks like this:
public class EducateLesson
{
[Key]
public int EducateLessonID { get; set; }
public EducateTopics Topic { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Introduction { get; set; }
public string Body { get; set; }
public string VideoURL { get; set; }
public int Likes { get; set; }
public virtual List<Comment> Comments { get; set; }
public void AddComment(Comment c)
{
Comments.Add(c);
}
}
public class Comment
{
[Key]
public int CommentID { get; set; }
public DateTime Date { get; set; }
public string IdentityUserName { get; set; }
public string Text { get; set; }
}
I have noted that the Comment class has no FK to the lesson object here.
These are the methods I've tried to retrieve the count for an individual lesson in the view:
count = (from l in lesson.Comments select l).Count();
#lesson.Comments.Count()
#lesson.Comments.Count
I solved this answer without changing the model. Comments made on this post were not actually beneficial. Firstly I added this to my repository class:
public int CommentCount(int id)
{
EducateLesson lesson = context.EducateLessons.Find(id);
return lesson.Comments.Count;
}
Next I took the count by creating a repository class and using this method for each lesson object:
int count = 0;
EducateRepository EducateRepository = new EducateRepository();
count = EducateRepository.CommentCount(lesson.EducateLessonID);

Entity Framework - Define Formular Template

I'm about to create an ASP.Net Web Application with MVC and EF for the following scenario:
Every month there are new people entering a department in our company. Until now we're using an Excel Spreadsheet to handle common "Workitems" such as granting filesystem permissions etc.
Now I want to handle those requests using a Webapplication but I'm stuck at creating the Model.
There are two different Requesttypes, "JoinRequest" and "ChangeRequest" for people joining the company and employees changing the department. For each request type there are different workitems defined. Those workitems should be displayed in the webapp when the corresponding request is selected. After the data is loaded the user has to enter the data for the workitems.
E.g.
[JoinRequest]
Add new Filesystem Access permission:
[ UNC Path ] [x] Read [ ] Read & Write
Here the user has to enter the UNC Path and the type of Accesslevel (R or RW).
For now I've got the following Model:
public abstract class DbItem {
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public DateTime CreationDate { get; set; }
public DateTime? DeletionDate { get; set; }
public string CreatedBy { get; set; }
public string DeletedBy { get; set; }
public bool IsDeleted => DeletionDate != null;
}
public abstract class Request : DbItem {
public Department NewDepartment { get; set; }
public DateTime BeginDate { get; set; }
public DateTime? EndDate { get; set; }
public ContractType ContractType { get; set; }
public EmployeeType EmployeeType { get; set; }
public string Location { get; set; }
public string ContactUserId { get; set; }
[NotMapped]
public User Contact {
get {
if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(ContactUserId)) {
var userSearcher = new ActiveDirectoryUserSearcher();
return userSearcher.FindByUserID(ContactUserId);
}
return null;
}
}
public string Phonenumber { get; set; }
//public virtual List<RequestWorkItem> RequestWorkItems { get; set; }
public bool IsFinished { get; set; }
public abstract string GetRequestType();
}
public abstract class WorkItem : DbItem {
[Key]
[ForeignKey("Language")]
public int LanguageId { get; set; }
[NotMapped]
public virtual Language Language { get; set; }
public string WorkItemText { get; set; }
public virtual Category Category { get; set; }
}
public class JoinRequest : Request {
public Person Person { get; set; }
public override string GetRequestType() {
return "New";
}
}
public class FileSystemAccessWorkItem : AccessWorkItem {
public FileSystemAccessRight FileSystemAccessRight { get; set; }
public string FileSystemPath { get; set; }
}
So when a user visits the website a new request has to be created but for every request type a set of workitems has to be loaded from the database. Additionally for every workitem the data the user entered should be saved somehow.
I hope you understand what I'm looking for - If anything is unclear I'll do my best to explain it more precisely
Edit1:
When looking at my Models I think the only think I achived is defining my Requests (so e.g. a JoinRequest contains some specific WorkItems) but how can I achive that a user is able to use this "RequestTemplate" to create a new Request and fill in the data to the corresponding workitems. Do I need additional Models for that? Maybe an example?

ASP.NET MVC 5 Edit Action - How to write to Multiple DB Tables/Models

Is there any way to somehow combine the data from two models and THEN map them both to the same viewModel in the context of an edit action?
I have never had to update several tables at once in an edit action in ASP.NET MVC with Entity Framework 6.1.3. This is the layout:
I have a DB table called "Address" which has fields for StreetNumber, StreetName, City, State, ZipCode. It has a one-to-one relationship with another table called Bars. As in, a bar can only have one address and one address can only have one bar.
Because I am storing this data in two separate tables, I am having a very difficult time trying to successfully implement an Edit action which takes data from one form (BarForm) and should update both the Bar and Address database tables. See my code:
BarController
public ActionResult Edit(int id)
{
var bar = _context.Bars.SingleOrDefault(m => m.Id == id);
var address = _context.Addresses.SingleOrDefault(a => a.BarId == id);
//Make sure that the id actually exists:
if (bar == null)
{
return HttpNotFound();
}
var viewModel = Mapper.Map<Bar, BarFormViewModel>(bar, new BarFormViewModel());
if (address == null)
{
address = new Address();
}
Mapper.Map<Address, BarFormViewModel>(address, viewModel);
viewModel.IsNew = false;
return View("BarForm", viewModel);
}
[ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
public ActionResult Save(BarFormViewModel bar)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
var viewModel = Mapper.Map<BarFormViewModel, BarFormViewModel>(bar, new BarFormViewModel());
viewModel.IsNew = false;
return View("BarForm", viewModel);
}
if (bar.Id == 0)
{
var newbar = Mapper.Map<BarFormViewModel, Bar>(bar);
newbar.LastUpdated = DateTime.UtcNow;
_context.Bars.Add(newbar);
var addressToAdd = Mapper.Map<BarFormViewModel, Address>(bar);
_context.Addresses.Add(addressToAdd);
}
else
{
var barInDb = _context.Bars.Single(b => b.Id == bar.Id);
var addressInDb = _context.Addresses.Single(a => a.BarId == bar.Id);
Mapper.Map<BarFormViewModel, Bar>(bar, barInDb);
Mapper.Map<BarFormViewModel, Address>(bar, addressInDb);
}
_context.SaveChanges();
return RedirectToAction("Index", "Bar");
}
Domain Models:
public class Bar
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
[Required]
public string GooglePlaceId { get; set; }
public string SundayDiscounts { get; set; }
public string MondayDiscounts { get; set; }
public string TuesdayDiscounts { get; set; }
public string WednesdayDiscounts { get; set; }
public string ThursdayDiscounts { get; set; }
public string FridayDiscounts { get; set; }
public string SaturdayDiscounts { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Last Updated")]
public DateTime LastUpdated { get; set; }
}
public class Address
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public int? Number { get; set; }
public string StreetName { get; set; }
public string City { get; set; }
public string State { get; set; }
[Required]
public int ZipCode { get; set; }
public Bar Bar { get; set; }
public int BarId { get; set; }
}
View Model which includes both Address and Bar properties:
{
public class BarFormViewModel
{
public int? Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
[Required]
[Display(Name = "Google Place ID")]
public string GooglePlaceId { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Sunday Happy Hour Info:")]
public string SundayDiscounts { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Monday Happy Hour Info:")]
public string MondayDiscounts { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Tuesday Happy Hour Info:")]
public string TuesdayDiscounts { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Wednesday Happy Hour Info:")]
public string WednesdayDiscounts { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Thursday Happy Hour Info:")]
public string ThursdayDiscounts { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Friday Happy Hour Info:")]
public string FridayDiscounts { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Saturday Happy Hour Info:")]
public string SaturdayDiscounts { get; set; }
[Display(Name = "Last Updated")]
public DateTime? LastUpdated { get; set; }
//Address Model Info
public Address Address { get; set; }
public int? AddressId { get; set; }
[RegularExpression("([1-9][0-9]*)", ErrorMessage = "Must be a number")]
public int? Number { get; set; }
public string StreetName { get; set; }
public string City { get; set; }
public string State { get; set; }
[Required]
public int? ZipCode { get; set; }
public bool IsNew { get; set; }
}
The problem here is that I am getting an empty AddressId with this setup, which is causing an exception when the Save action gets run. This is because the BarForm view is getting passed a ViewModel which has been mapped from a Bar object and the Bar domain model actually has no Address information in it, since it is not the Address model/table.
Is there any way to somehow combine the data from both the Address and Bar models and THEN map them both to the same viewModel?
I keep getting a Sequence Contains no Elements error for this line in the Save action:
var addressInDb = _context.Addresses.Single(a => a.Id == bar.AddressId);
I also tried:
var addressInDb = _context.Addresses.Single(a => a.BarId == bar.Id);
Neither work. I understand what the error is saying and have also checked the actual HTML for my hidden Addressid field and it is blank... See code in my BarForm View:
#Html.HiddenFor(m => m.Id)
#Html.HiddenFor(m => m.AddressId)
#Html.AntiForgeryToken()
Remove the new BarFormViewModel() as the second parameter in your mapping calls as it is not necessary.
In your post action, inside your if statement that checks if the ModelState is valid and if bar.Id == 0, bar is already a view model, so no need to mapping.
And when you create your AutoMapper mapping, you must create a custom property mapping because the Address.Id property will not map automatically to the AddressId property as the name is not the same.
AutoMapper.Mapper.CreateMap<Address, BarFormViewModel>()
.ForMember(dest => dest.AddressId, o => o.MapFrom(source => source.Id));
And then do the same for the inverse mapping.

Updating List<T> in DbContext

I have a Model like this
public class Challenge
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Blurb { get; set; }
public int Points { get; set; }
public string Category { get; set; }
public string Flag { get; set; }
public List<string> SolvedBy { get; set; }
}
public class ChallengeDBContext : DbContext
{
public DbSet<Challenge> Challenges { get; set; }
}
and then Controller like this. But I cannot update the List "SolvedBy", the next time I step through with the debugger, the list is still empty.
[HttpPost]
public string Index(string flag = "", int id=0)
{
Challenge challenge = db.Challenges.Find(id);
if (flag == challenge.Flag)
{
var chall = db.Challenges.Find(id);
if (chall.SolvedBy == null)
{
chall.SolvedBy = new List<string>();
}
chall.SolvedBy.Add(User.Identity.Name);
db.Entry(chall).State = EntityState.Modified;
db.SaveChanges();
//congrats, you solved the puzzle
return "got it";
}
else
{
return "fail";
}
}
is there any way around it to make a list of strings kept in the database?
EF don't know how to store an array in database table so it just ignore it. You can create another table/entity or use XML/JSON to store the list. You can serialize the list before saving and deserialize it after loading from database
A List<T> in a model would normally map to a second table, but in your DbContext you only have a single table. Try adding a second table.
public class ChallengeDBContext : DbContext
{
public DbSet<Challenge> Challenges { get; set; }
public DbSet<Solution> Solutions {get; set;}
}
public class Challenge
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Blurb { get; set; }
public int Points { get; set; }
public string Category { get; set; }
public string Flag { get; set; }
public List<Solution> SolvedBy { get; set; }
}
public class Solution
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
Then your controller can use code along the lines of...
var chall = db.Challenges.Find(id);
if (chall.SolvedBy == null)
{
chall.SolvedBy = new List<Solution>();
}
chall.SolvedBy.Add(new Solution {Name=User.Identity.Name});
None of the above has been tested and I may have made some mistakes there, but the general principle I want to illustrate is the fact that you need another table. The List<T> represents a JOIN in SQL.

Saving from a view model to a model in ASP.NET MVC

I have two models, a code model and a tag model which are linked by a many to many relationship. I am trying to add a code entry that includes a possible selection of many tags using a view model (using check boxes for the tags in my view). I am getting the error:
The model item passed into the dictionary is of type 'System.Collections.Generic.List'1[StoRed.Models.Code]', but this dictionary requires a model item of type 'System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable`1[StoRed.Models.CodeTagViewModel]'.
It feels like I need to somehow convert my data to the acceptable format before trying to save it into the table but I'm new to MVC and I am having trouble finding any useful information on the internet about my specific problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
The code model
public class Code
{
[Key]
public int CodeID { get; set; }
[Required]
[StringLength(30)]
public string Title { get; set; }
[Required]
[StringLength(150)]
public string Description { get; set; }
public DateTime DateAdded { get; set; }
public DateTime LastUpdated { get; set; }
[Required]
[StringLength(30)]
public string Project { get; set; }
[Required]
[StringLength(30)]
public string CMS { get; set; }
public int DotNetVersion { get; set; }
[Required]
[StringLength(150)]
public string Dependencies { get; set; }
[StringLength(30)]
public string Author { get; set; }
public string CodeFile { get; set; }
[Required]
[StringLength(100)]
public string TFSLocation { get; set; }
////Creates a relationship in the DB with Tag
//[ForeignKey("TagID")]
public virtual ICollection<Tag> Tags { get; set; }
////Purely for API
//[Required]
public int TagID { get; set; }
}
The Tag model
public class Tag
{
[Key]
public int TagID { get; set; }
[Required]
[StringLength(30)]
public string TagName { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Code> Code { get; set; }
}
The context
public class Context : DbContext
{
public DbSet<Code> Code { get; set; }
public DbSet<Tag> Tags { get; set; }
}
The view model
public class CodeTagViewModel
{
public Tag Tag { get; set; }
public Tag TagID { get; set; }
public List<Tag> Tags { get; set; }
public int CodeID { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public DateTime DateAdded { get; set; }
public DateTime LastUpdated { get; set; }
public string Project { get; set; }
public string CMS { get; set; }
public int DotNetVersion { get; set; }
public string Dependencies { get; set; }
public string Author { get; set; }
public string CodeFile { get; set; }
public string TFSLocation { get; set; }
}
Relevant part of the code controller
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Create(CodeTagViewModel codeTagViewModel)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
Code code = new Code();
Tag tag = new Tag();
var codeTag = new CodeTagViewModel();
code.Title = codeTagViewModel.Title;
code.Description = codeTagViewModel.Description;
code.DateAdded = codeTagViewModel.DateAdded;
code.LastUpdated = codeTagViewModel.LastUpdated;
code.Project = codeTagViewModel.Project;
code.CMS = codeTagViewModel.CMS;
code.DotNetVersion = codeTagViewModel.DotNetVersion;
code.Dependencies = codeTagViewModel.Dependencies;
code.Author = codeTagViewModel.Author;
code.CodeFile = codeTagViewModel.CodeFile;
code.TFSLocation = codeTagViewModel.TFSLocation;
code.Tags = codeTagViewModel.Tags;
db.Code.Add(code);
db.SaveChanges();
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
return View(codeTagViewModel);
}
Your best bet is to create some kind of provider/manager/service/factory/handler - choose a name that makes most sense in terms of the job it is doing within the flow of data through your system - that is responsible for taking the ViewModel and mapping the properties of the ViewModel into an instance of the domain model before persisting the domain model to the data store, either itself or by passing the hydrated domain model to a repository layer. You can either do this manually or by using something like AutoMapper. Here's a quick manual example:
Create a CommandHandlers folder in your web project with the interface and dependant handler:
public interface ICodeCommandHandler
{
int Save(CodeTagViewModel input);
}
public class CodeCommandHandler : ICodeCommandHandler
{
private IRepository<Code> repository;
public CodeCommandHandler(IRepository<Code> repository)
{
this.repository = repository;
}
public int Save(CodeTagViewModel input)
{
Code code = new Code();
Tag tag = new Tag();
code.Title = input.Title;
code.Description = input.Description;
code.DateAdded = input.DateAdded;
code.LastUpdated = input.LastUpdated;
code.Project = input.Project;
code.CMS = input.CMS;
code.DotNetVersion = input.DotNetVersion;
code.Dependencies = input.Dependencies;
code.Author = input.Author;
code.CodeFile = input.CodeFile;
code.TFSLocation = input.TFSLocation;
code.Tags.Add(tag);
return repository.Save(code);
}
}
Then in your controller, inject the ICodeCommandHandler in via constructor injection, the same as you do with the repository in the CodeCommandHandler:
private readonly ICodeCommandHandler commandHandler;
public CodeController(ICodeCommandHandler commandHandler)
{
this.commandHandler = commandHandler;
}
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Create(CodeTagViewModel codeTagViewModel)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
return View(codeTagViewModel);
}
var id = codeCommandHandler.Save(codeTagViewModel);
// maybe do something useful with the document id after save
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
To keep the Repository nice and simple, here's how that could look:
public interface IRepository<T>
{
int Save(T entity);
}
public class CodeRepository : IRepository<Code>
{
public int Save(Code entity)
{
using (var context = new Context())
{
context.Code.Add(entity);
context.SaveChanges();
}
}
}
I've not gone into detail about the dependency injection side of things as that wasn't part of the question but this should give you an idea of where to start

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