So I would like to update/replace one complete row with the data I have.
Instead of doing
entityA.Name = entityB.Name
I would like to say something like entityA = entityB, where entitiyB is same as entityA but has new values.
Please let me know.
Thanks..
simply doing entity1 = entity2 would change the entity1 reference and hence the context wont track the new reference ay more. Thus the changd value wont be updated.
you should be using an object mapper for that. i personally use GLUE that can be installed using command Install-Package Glue on the package manager console
There are others too like AutoMapper
if you go with glue then just make a mapping like
var mapping = new Mapping<entity1, entity2>();
mapping.AutoRelateEqualNames();
//or define a mapping using .Relate()
//then call map
mapping.Map(entity1)//this will return entity2
or if you already have an object tracked by a context class call
entity2 = mapping.Map(entity1, entity2);
Related
Using a JPA2 Criteria Query we can project the final result on a DTO (for instance) like this:
query.select(builder.construct( ProductGridDTO.class,
root.get(Productos_.proId),
root.get(Productos_.proAlias),
root.get(Productos_.proNombre),
companies.get(Companias_.ciaNombre),
companies.get(Companias_.ciaId)));
However this method is dependant of the order of arguments in my DTO class, which is plain wrong. Using the old (now deprecated) hibernate criteria API we could use the projection list:
ProjectionList projectionList = Projections.projectionList();
projectionList.add(Projections.property("id"), "id");
projectionList.add(Projections.property("name"), "name");
Which is not dependent of the parameter order of the DTO.
Is it possible to use a similar strategy in JPA?
I don't think so, the argument order must match in JPA. This could be because, until Java 8, parameter names were only available if the bytecode includes debug information. My guess is that most JPA providers end up calling Constructor.newInstance() and here the argument must be ordered correctly.
I moved on to QueryDSL which provides a higher level abstraction and solves this projection issue. So a query to load an entity and return a DTO for said entity becomes:
public List<CompanyDTO> findByCompanyId(String companyId) {
JPAQuery<?> query = new JPAQuery<Void>(em);
QCompany company = QCompany.company;
return query.from(company)
.where(company.companyId.eq(companyId))
.select(Projections.constructor(CompanyDTO.class, company))
.fetch();
}
Where CompanyDTO contains a constructor for the company Entity.
Web services cannot return an anonymous type.
If you are building a LINQ query using classes through a datacontext... you cannot construct instances of those classes in a query.
Why would I want to do this? Say I want to join three "tables" or sets of objects. I have three items with a foreign key to each other. And say the lowest, most detailed of these was represented by a class that had fields from the other two to represent the data from those. In my LINQ query I would want to return a list of the lowest, most detailed class. This is one way I have decided to "join some tables together" and return data from each of them via LINQ to SQL via a WebService. This may be bad practice. I certainly do not like adding the additional properties to the lowest level class.
Consider something like this... (please ignore the naming conventions, they are driven by internal consideration) also for some reason I need to instantiate an anonymous type for the join... I don't know why that is... if I do not do it this way I get an error...
from su in _dataContext.GetTable<StateUpdate>()
join sfs in _dataContext.GetTable<SystemFacetState>()
on new { su.lngSystemFacetState } equals new { lngSystemFacetState = sfs.lngSystemFacetState }
join sf in _dataContext.GetTable<SystemFacet>()
on new { sfs.lngSystemFacet } equals new { lngSystemFacet = sf.lngSystemFacet }
join s in _dataContext.GetTable<System>()
on new { sf.lngSystem } equals new {lngSystem = s.lngSystem}
select new
{
lngStateUpdate = su.lngStateUpdate,
strSystemFacet = sf.strSystemFacet,
strSystemFacetState = sfs.strSystemFacetState,
dtmStateUpdate = su.dtmStateUpdate,
dtmEndTime = su.dtmEndTime,
lngDuration = su.lngDuration,
strSystem = s.strSystem
}
).ToList();
Notice I have to build the anonymous type which is composed of pieces of each type. Then I have to do something like this... (convert it to a known type for transport via the web service)
result = new List<StateUpdate>(from a in qr select(new StateUpdate
{
lngStateUpdate = a.lngStateUpdate,
strSystemFacet = a.strSystemFacet,
strSystemFacetState = a.strSystemFacetState,
dtmStateUpdate = a.dtmStateUpdate,
dtmEndTime = a.dtmEndTime,
lngDuration = a.lngDuration,
strSystem = a.strSystem
}));
It is just awful. And perhaps I have created an awful mess. If I am way way off track here please guide me to the light. I feel I am missing something fundamental here when I am adding all these "unmapped" properties to the StateUpdate class.
I hope someone can see what I am doing here so I can get a better way to do it.
You can create a 'dto' class which just contains the properties you need to return and populate it instead of the anonymous object:
public class Result
{
public string lngStateUpdate
{
get;
set;
}
... // other properties
}
then use it like this:
from su in _dataContext.GetTable<StateUpdate>()
...
select new Result
{
lngStateUpdate = su.lngStateUpdate,
... // other properties
}
Nitpick note - please ditch the Hungarian notation and camel casing for properties :)
I think the answer is to create another object to serve as a DTO. This object would not be mapped to the data context and can contain fields that cross the mapped objects. This solves the problems of repetitive properties in the mapped objects, and allows for instantiation of the DTO class in the query as it is not mapped.
FYI: with respect to the problem with the join- I revisited that and I think I may have had the inner and outer components of the join switched around before.
Using Breeze, what is the simplest way to populate a GUID key when an entity is created?
I'll assume that your entity is configured such that the client is responsible for setting the Guid key for new entities. That's the default for the Guid key of an Entity Framework Code First entity; it is as if the key property were adorned with [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.None)]
The obvious approach is to set the key after creating the entity and before adding it to the manager, e.g.:
function createFoo() {
var foo = fooType.createEntity();
foo.id(breeze.core.getUuid()); // Knockout implementation
manager.addEntity(foo);
}
This may be all you ever need.
On the other hand, you may find that you're creating new Foos in many places and for some strange reason you can't use the createFoo function. You certainly don't want to repeat that code.
You can extend the Foo entity type with id-setting behavior after which you'd be able to write:
function createFoo() {
var foo = fooType.createEntity(); // foo.id is set for you
manager.addEntity(foo);
}
There are two approaches to consider - custom constructor and type initializer; both are described in "Extending Entities"
Constructor
You can initialize the key inside a custom constructor. Breeze calls the constructor both when you create the entity and when it materializes a queried entity. Breeze will replace the initial key value when materializing.
Here's an example that assumes the Knockout model library.
function Foo() {
foo.id(breeze.core.getUuid()); // using KO
}
// one way to get the MetadataStore
var store = manager.metadataStore;
// register the ctor with the Foo type
store.registerEntityTypeCtor("Foo", Foo);
Pretty simple. The only downside is that Breeze will generate a Guid every time it makes an entity, whether creating a new one or materializing one from a query. It's wasted effort during materialization but so what? Well, I suppose that might become a performance issue although I wouldn't assume so until I had measured it.
Initializer
Suppose you measured and the repeated Guid generation is a serious problem (really?). You could set the key in a type initializer instead and only call the Guid generator when creating a new entity.
Breeze calls a type initializer after the entity has been created or materialized from query just before returning that entity to the application. Clearly you don't want to overwrite a materialized key from the database so you'll test the key value to make sure it's not real (i.e. to make sure you're fixing a created entity) before assigning it. Here's an example.
function fooInitializer(foo) {
var emptyGuid = "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000";
if (foo.id() !=== emptyGuid) {
foo.id(breeze.core.getUuid());
}
}
var store = manager.metadataStore;
// register the initializer; no ctor in this example
store.registerEntityTypeCtor("Foo", function(){}, fooInitializer);
Assuming you have a Guid surrogate Key on all your entities like we have in our case, you could code a createInstance factory that does the following in a very generic approach:
function createInstance(breezeEntityManager, typeName) {
var keyProperty = breezeEntityManager.metadataStore.getEntityType(typeName, false).dataProperties.filter(function (p) {
return p.isPartOfKey;
})[0];
var config = {};
config[keyProperty.name] = breeze.core.getUuid();
return breezeEntityManager.createEntity(typeName, config);
}
This way, you won't have to create an initializer for all your entities.
My scenario:
This is an ASP.NET 4.0 web app programmed via C#
I implement a repository pattern. My repositorys all share the same ObjectContext, which is stored in httpContext.Items. Each repository creates a new ObjectSet of type E. Heres some code from my repository:
public class Repository<E> : IRepository<E>, IDisposable
where E : class
{
private DataModelContainer _context = ContextHelper<DataModelContainer>.GetCurrentContext();
private IObjectSet<E> _objectSet;
private IObjectSet<E> objectSet
{
get
{
if (_objectSet == null)
{
_objectSet = this._context.CreateObjectSet<E>();
}
return _objectSet;
}
}
public IQueryable<E> GetQuery()
{
return objectSet;
}
Lets say I have 2 repositorys, 1 for states and 1 for countrys and want to create a linq query against both. Note that I use POCO classes with the entity framework. State and Country are 2 of these POCO classes.
Repository stateRepo = new Repository<State>();
Repository countryRepo = new Repository<Country>();
IEnumerable<State> states = (from s in _stateRepo.GetQuery()
join c in _countryRepo.GetQuery() on s.countryID equals c.countryID
select s).ToList();
Debug.WriteLine(states.First().Country.country)
essentially, I want to retrieve the state and the related country entity. The query only returns the state data... and I get a null argument exception on the Debug.WriteLine
LazyLoading is disabled in my .edmx... thats the way I want it.
You're doing a join without retrieving anything from it. There are multiple solutions to your problem:
Use Include to load the dependent entities: from s in ((ObjectSet<State>) _stateRepo.GetQuery).Include("Country"). The problem with this approach is that you should expose the ObjectSet directly rather than as a IQueryable if you want to avoid casting.
Use context.LoadProperty(states.First(), s => s.Country) to explicitly load the Country from the database for a given state.
Select both entities in the query: from s in ... join c ... select new { s, c }. You won't be able to access directly the state's Country property but you have it in the anonymous type.
Enable lazy loading.
Your repository implementation is very similar to mine, especially the way you are storing the ObjectContext. It works fine for me, so I don't think it's a conceptual problem.
Try using a static objectcontext (no wrapper) just to see if that fixes the problem. Perhaps there is a bug in your ContextHelper which causes your context to get disposed and recreated.
I've got a data provider that contains a collection of entities. I only want to be able to create a new entity through the data provider.
I.e, to create a new record I need to use:
Entity entity = Provider.AddNew();
enity.set_Properties... etc
My issue is that if I set my entities to Internal, System.Activator cannot create an Instance of them. Each of my Data Providers uses a Base class with the generic type of the entity passed through.
So at the moment my AddNew() method contains the following:
public T AddNew()
{
T added = Activator.CreateInstance<T>();
this.Collection.Add(added);
return added;
}
It's obviously not the end of the world if I can instantiate a new entity manually outside of the Data Provider namespaces, but it seems pointless considering there's no way to ever save them, so why give the option to do so?
EDIT: Forgot to mention that all my providers, entities, etc are in the same namespace.
Don't use the Activator, which relies on a public constructor. Instead use reflection to find the parameterless constructor and then call it. Something along these lines:
Type t = typeof(MyType);
var parameterlessCtor = (from c in t.GetConstructors(
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance)
where c.GetParameters().Length == 0
select c).FirstOrDefault;
if(parameterlessCtor != null) instance = parameterlessCtor.Invoke(null);