How can I store an array of doubles to database using Entity Framework Code-First with no impact on the existing code and architecture design?
I've looked at Data Annotation and Fluent API, I've also considered converting the double array to a string of bytes and store that byte to the database in it own column.
I cannot access the public double[] Data { get; set; } property with Fluent API, the error message I then get is:
The type double[] must be a non-nullable value type in order to use
it as parameter 'T'.
The class where Data is stored is successfully stored in the database, and the relationships to this class. I'm only missing the Data column.
You can do a thing like this :
[NotMapped]
public double[] Data
{
get
{
string[] tab = this.InternalData.Split(',');
return new double[] { double.Parse(tab[0]), double.Parse(tab[1]) };
}
set
{
this.InternalData = string.Format("{0},{1}", value[0], value[1]);
}
}
[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
public string InternalData { get; set; }
Thank you all for your inputs, due to your help I was able to track down the best way to solve this. Which is:
public string InternalData { get; set; }
public double[] Data
{
get
{
return Array.ConvertAll(InternalData.Split(';'), Double.Parse);
}
set
{
_data = value;
InternalData = String.Join(";", _data.Select(p => p.ToString()).ToArray());
}
}
Thanks to these stackoverflow posts:
String to Doubles array and
Array of Doubles to a String
I know it is a bit expensive, but you could do this
class Primitive
{
public int PrimitiveId { get; set; }
public double Data { get; set; }
[Required]
public Reference ReferenceClass { get; set; }
}
// This is the class that requires an array of doubles
class Reference
{
// Other EF stuff
// EF-acceptable reference to an 'array' of doubles
public virtual List<Primitive> Data { get; set; }
}
This will now map a single entity (here 'Reference') to a 'list' of your Primitive class. This is basically to allow the SQL database to be happy, and allow you to use your list of data appropriately.
This may not suit your needs, but will be a way to make EF happy.
It would be far easier if you use List<double> rather then double[]. You already have a table that stores your Data values. You probably have foreign key from some table to the table where your double values are stored. Create another model that reflects the table where doubles are stored and add foreign key mappings in the mappings class. That way you will not need to add some complex background logic which retrieves or stores values in a class property.
In my opinion almost all other answers work on the opposite of how it should be.
Entity EF should manage the string and the array must be generated from it. So the array must be whole read and written only when the string is accessed by EF.
A solution involving logic on Data[] is wrong because, as I wrote in a comment, you would run into paradoxical conditions. In all other conditions the variable must remain a pure array.
By putting the "get" and "set" logic in Data[], as I've seen so far, this happens:
1 - Every time an index access is made to the array, the array is automatically recreated from the string. This is a useless work, think of an iteration in a loop...
2 - when you go to set a single element it is not stored because it passes through "get" and not "set".
If you try to declare Data=new []{0,0,0} then set Data[1]=2 , going to re-read Data[1] the result is 0.
My solution is to completely turn the logic around.
public string Data_string
{
get => string.Join(';', Data??Array.Empty());
set => Data= value == null ? Array.Empty<double>() : Array.ConvertAll(value.Split(';',StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries), double.Parse);
}
[NotMapped]
public double[] Data {get;set;}
Obviously this only applies to storing and retrieving data on databases, access to Data_string is exclusive to EF.
Once the string is read from the DB it is associated to Data_string which, through set, creates the Data array.
At this point you can work on Data without affecting the string in any way, like a normal array.
When you will ask EF to save in the DB, through the get in the Data_string property, the string will be completely reconstructed based on the Data elements and then stored as a string.
Practically the string is modified only twice, at the moment of reading from the DB and at the moment of saving.
In my opinion this solution is much more efficient than operating continuously on the string.
Nathan White has the best answer (got my vote).
Here is a small improvement over Joffrey Kern's answer to allow lists of any length (untested):
[NotMapped]
public IEnumerable<double> Data
{
get
{
var tab = InternalData.Split(',');
return tab.Select(double.Parse).AsEnumerable();
}
set { InternalData = string.Join(",", value); }
}
[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
public string InternalData { get; set; }
Don't use double[] use List insted.
Like this.
public class MyModel{
...
public List<MyClass> Data { get; set; }
...
}
public class MyClass{
public int Id { get; set; }
public double Value { get; set; }
}
All that solution that I see there are bad, because:
If you create table, you don't want to store data like this: "99.5,89.65,78.5,15.5" that's not valid! Firstly its a string that means if you can type letter into it and at the moment when your ASP.NET server call double.Parse it will result in FormatException and that you really don't want!
It's slower, because your server must parse the string. Why parse the string instead getting almost ready data from SQL Server to use?
i know this post is Ancient, but in case someone still needs to do something like this, PLEASE DO NOT USE THE ABOVE SOLUTIONS,
as the above solutions are EXTREMELY inefficient (Performance and Disk Space wise).., the best way is to store the array as a Byte array
public byte[] ArrayData;
[NotMapped]
public double[] Array {
get {
var OutputArray = new double[ArrayData.Length / 8];
for (int i = 0;i < ArrayData.Length / 8;i++)
OutputArray[i] = BitConverter.ToDouble(ArrayData, i * 8);
return OutputArray;
}
set {
var OutputData = new byte[value.Length * 8];
for (int i = 0;i < value.Length;i++) {
var BinaryValue = BitConverter.GetBytes(value[i]);
OutputData[(i*8)] = BinaryValue[0];
OutputData[(i*8)+1] = BinaryValue[1];
OutputData[(i*8)+2] = BinaryValue[2];
OutputData[(i*8)+3] = BinaryValue[3];
OutputData[(i*8)+4] = BinaryValue[4];
OutputData[(i*8)+5] = BinaryValue[5];
OutputData[(i*8)+6] = BinaryValue[6];
OutputData[(i*8)+7] = BinaryValue[7];
}
ArrayData = OutputData;
}
}
`
And if you need more performance, you can go for Unsafe code and use pointers .. instead of BitConverter ..
This is way better than saving double values (that can get huge) as string, then spliting the string array !! and then parsing the strings to double !!!
These getter/setters work on the whole array, but if you need to get just one item from the array, you can make a function that gets a single item from the array with a complexity of O(1) :
for Get :
public double Array_GetValue(int Index) {
return BitConverter.ToDouble(ArrayData, Index * 8);
}
for Set :
public void Array_SetValue(int Index, double Value) {
var BinaryValue = BitConverter.GetBytes(Value);
ArrayData[(Index*8)] = BinaryValue[0];
ArrayData[(Index*8)+1] = BinaryValue[1];
ArrayData[(Index*8)+2] = BinaryValue[2];
ArrayData[(Index*8)+3] = BinaryValue[3];
ArrayData[(Index*8)+4] = BinaryValue[4];
ArrayData[(Index*8)+5] = BinaryValue[5];
ArrayData[(Index*8)+6] = BinaryValue[6];
ArrayData[(Index*8)+7] = BinaryValue[7];
}
If your collection can be null or empty, and you want this to be preserved, do this:
[NotMapped]
public double[] Data
{
get => InternalData != null ? Array.ConvertAll(Data.Split(new[] { ',' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries), double.Parse) : null;
set => InternalData = value != null ? string.Join(";", value) : null;
}
Also, specify [Column(TypeName = "varchar")] on the string property for a more efficient storage data type.
A perfect enhancement to #Jonas's answer will be to add the necessary annotations. So, a cleaner version would be
[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
[JsonIgnore]
public string InternalData { get; set; }
[NotMapped]
public double[] Data
{
get => Array.ConvertAll(InternalData.Split(';'), double.Parse);
set
{
InternalData = string.Join(";", value.Select(p => p.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)).ToArray());
}
}
The [JsonIgnore] Annotation will ignore the InternalData field from JSON serialization and Swagger UI.
[EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)] will hide the public method from the IDE IntelliSense
I am trying to setup a product key system in my application, but I want to ensure the attribute has the right size (16 characters).
I tried the following
public class ProductKey
{
public const int ProductKeyLength = 16;
[StringLength(ProductKeyLength, MinimumLength = ProductKeyLength)]
private string _value;
[Required]
[Index(IsUnique = true)]
public string Value {
get
{
var temp = Regex.Replace(this._value, ".{4}", "$0-");
return temp.Trim('-');
}
set { this._value = value.Replace("-", "");}
}
}
I want to enable the user to insert the key with our without hyphen. I get the following error with above code:
Column 'Value' in table 'dbo.ProductKeys' is of a type that is invalid for use as a key column in an index.
As I understood, I need to set a limit to Value so it can be used as a unique key. But, _value has a limit and _value is the actual representation of Value in the database.
Is there a way to set the limit correctly in this case?
Thanks in advance.
You are getting the error because without a StringLength attribute on the Value field, the database column gets created as VARCHAR(MAX) which cannot be used as a key. You need a [StringLength] on the field being used as a key. However, as your getter is returning the key formatted with dashes, you need the key length to be 19:
public class ProductKey
{
public const int ProductKeyLength = 19;
private string _value { get; set; }
[Key]
[Required]
[StringLength(ProductKeyLength, MinimumLength = ProductKeyLength)]
[Index(IsUnique = true)]
public string Value
{
get
{
var temp = Regex.Replace(this._value, ".{4}", "$0-");
return temp.Trim('-');
}
set { this._value = value.Replace("-", ""); }
}
}
You might be better off doing your format conversion in ViewModels and client-side code, as one problem you'll have here is searching - for example...
db.Keys.Add(new ProductKey { Value = "1234-5678-9012-3456" });
db.Keys.Add(new ProductKey { Value = "1234567890123455" });
db.SaveChanges();
Console.WriteLine(db.Keys.Count(k => k.Value.Contains("89"))); // 0
Console.WriteLine(db.Keys.Count(k => k.Value.Contains("8-9"))); // 2
I've declared an API call in an interface and was wondering if it is possible to put constraints on some of the parameters. The API I'm accessing has these constraints as well and would like to enforce them in my program.
#GET("/recipes/search")
Call<RecipeResponse> getRecipes(
#Query("cuisine") String cuisine,
#Query("diet") String diet,
#Query("excludeIngredients") String excludeIngredients,
#Query("intolerances") String intolerances,
#Query("number") Integer number,
#Query("offset") Integer offset,
#Query("query") String query,
#Query("type") String type
);
How can I do this?
I know that it is possible to do this with POST request, and passing along an object via the RequestBody through the #Body annotation. Can I do this with a GET request too, where information is passed via the query string?
Thanks!
I think I ended up finding a solution. I've made a class SearchRecipeRequest in which I declare all possible parameters as class variables. In the setters I do the data validation such as checking for null on parameters that are required, or min/max value constraints on integers as specified by the endpoint. I then made a SearchRecipeRequestBuilder class to build such an object like so to make it easier to deal with all those possible parameters:
public class SearchRecipeRequestBuilder {
private String _cuisine = null,
_diet = null,
_excludeIngredients = null,
_intolerances = null,
_query = null,
_type = null;
private Integer _number = null,
_offset = null;
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder() {}
public SearchRecipeRequest buildRequest() {
return new SearchRecipeRequest(_cuisine, _diet, _excludeIngredients, _intolerances, _number, _offset, _query, _type);
}
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder cuisine(String cuisine) {
_cuisine = cuisine;
return this;
}
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder diet(String diet) {
_diet = diet;
return this;
}
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder excludeIngredients(String excludeIngredients) {
_excludeIngredients = excludeIngredients;
return this;
}
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder intolerances(String intolerances) {
_intolerances = intolerances;
return this;
}
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder query(String query) {
_query = query;
return this;
}
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder type(String type) {
_type = type;
return this;
}
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder number(Integer number) {
_number = number;
return this;
}
public SearchRecipeRequestBuilder offset(Integer offset) {
_offset = offset;
return this;
}
}
Which allows me to build the request like so:
SearchRecipeRequest request = new SearchRecipeRequestBuilder()
.query("burger")
.buildRequest();
I then pass along that object to a different function that knows how to use the request object to pass it along to the API.
That's how I'm doing it right now, if someone has a better way I'd love to hear it. :)
I got the idea to use the Builder pattern from a different StackOverflow question: Managing constructors with many parameters in Java.
asp.net C#4
I have a simple class to working with query strings.
A new instance is created like this:
public QueryString(string querystring)
{
try
{
_table = new Hashtable();
if (querystring.Length > 0)
{
foreach (string pair in querystring.Split('&'))
{
string[] item = pair.Split('=');
_table.Add(item[0].ToLower(), item[1]);
}
}
}
catch (Exception)
{
}
}
I want to add a method to this that will remove a key value pair. I don't want it to return a new querystring, I just want it to remove the pair from the current instance. Not sure how to do that since it says I can't assign a value to 'this'
public void Remove(string key)
{
String querystring = this.ToString();
try
{
_table = new Hashtable();
if (key.Length > 0)
{
foreach (string pair in querystring.Split('&'))
{
string[] item = pair.Split('=');
if (item[0] != key)
{
_table.Add(item[0].ToLower(), item[1]);
}
}
this = _table;
}
}
catch (Exception)
{
}
}
You're overcomplicating things. Since your class's state is made up of the _table field, all you need to do is remove the item with the given key from that field.
The following example replaces your untyped Hashtable wit a strongly-typed Dictionary. I also chose to initialize the dictionary with a LINQ statement, but you could keep your old code there if you prefer.
public class QueryString
{
private readonly Dictionary<string, string> _table;
public QueryString(string querystring)
{
if (querystring.Length > 0)
{
var pairs =
from pair in querystring.Split('&')
let item = pair.Split('=')
select new {key = item[0], value = item[1]};
_table = pairs.ToDictionary(p => p.key, p => p.value);
}
}
public void Remove(string key)
{
_table.Remove(key);
}
}
You cannot assign a value to this since it is a reference to the object itself.
However, if you remove the line this = _table; , isn't things working as they should then? I guess your ToString() is somewhat using the hashtable to generate a "printer friendly" QueryString, and if that is the case, the way I see it, your Remove() method should be working (since you are replacing the _table variable with a new HashTable not including the key-value pair you want to exclude).
you are passing a querystring into the class so the original querystring IS intact.
However you then break down the querystring into a a Hashtable of key/value pairs. If you want to keep THAT intact you need to clone the HashTable and perform the remove on the clone.
In any case it's probably a good idea to keep the querystring you are passing in as a constructor parameter in a member variable for safe keeping.
I have many Flex objects like this one:
public class MyData {
public var time: Date;
public var label: String;
}
I am populating this object from a DB record retrieved via AMF that looks something like this:
{
label: "Label",
incident: "2009-08-15 11:12:14.12233"
}
I want to write a generic value mapper for these object that, given a target object (instance of MyData here) and an input record, will be able to tell that MyData.time is a Date field and perform type mapping automatically. Something like this:
function map(obj, targetType): * {
var newInstance: * = new targetType();
for (var property: String in obj) {
if (getPropertyType(targetType, property) == Date) {
newInstance[property] = parseDate(obj[property]);
}
else {
newInstance[property] = obj[property];
}
}
}
function getPropertyType(type_var: Class, property: String): Class {
// .. this is what I have no idea how to do
}
Can someone fill in the blank here?
You possibly need something like describeType. And maybe you need to use getDefinitionByName() if you want to make to a real object. So something like this for the contents of your function:
var typeXml:XML = describeType(type_var[property]);
return getDefinitionByName(typeXml.type[0].#name);
I haven't compiled it. Just throwing it out there to see if it helps.
You can use the 'is' operator to check the type of an object.
The is operator
function map(obj, targetType): * {
var newInstance: * = new targetType();
for (var property: String in obj) {
if (obj[property] is Date) {
newInstance[property] = parseDate(obj[property]);
}
else {
newInstance[property] = obj[property];
}
}
}
hth
Koen
If you need to map an Object variable to a variable class as MyData you can do the following
public class MyData
{
public var time: Date;
public var label: String;
function map(obj:Object):void
{
for (var property: String in obj)
{
this[property] = obj[property];
}
}
}
Note: The object obj must contain the exact "time" and "label" properties.
Hope it solves your problem