Entity to Model and foreign key objects - asp.net

Question

I have an EF object called SportDivision. For simplicity's sake, I won't include every field, just the ones that are relevant:
[Table("SportDivision", Schema = "dbo")]
public class SportDivision: BaseReferenceEntity
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int SportId { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("SportId")]
public virtual Sport Sport { get; set; }
}
So it has a SportId and it's a foreign key that points to the table Sport.
Now, I can't just use an EF object in my views, so I have a model class that's mapped to SportDivision called SportDivisionModel:
public class SportDivisionModel: BaseReferenceModel
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int SportId { get; set; }
//Read only fields
public string Sport { get; set; }
}
I use automapper to transfer data from SportDivision to SportDivisionModel and vice versa. The mapping looks like this:
Mapper.CreateMap<SportDivision, SportDivisionModel>()
.ForMember(x => x.Sport, c => c.MapFrom(e => e.Sport.Name));
Mapper.CreateMap<SportDivisionModel, SportDivision>();
And I have a genericized service that CRUDs and translates data from entity to model or model to entity. Everything works fine except on Create, of which the function is shown below:
public TModel Create<TModel, TEntity>(TModel entry)
where TModel : BaseReferenceModel
where TEntity : BaseReferenceEntity
{
var dm = ServiceLocator.Current.GetInstance<ICrudService<TEntity>>();
var raw = Mapper.Map<TModel, TEntity>(entry);
var created = dm.CreateOrUpdate(raw);
return Mapper.Map<TEntity, TModel>(dm.FindById(created.Id));
}
In the very last line, where you see dm.FindById(created.Id), it returns a SportDivisionModel object with no Sport name. A null reference exception is found in .ForMember(x => x.Sport, c => c.MapFrom(e => e.Sport.Name));. It didn't load Sport after the entry was just created in the database.
I've debugged the code, and I see that the entry with a valid SportId is entered into the SportDivision table of my database, but when I try and bring it over to my MVC application, it doesn't get all the information.
This only is an issue on create. If I simply get data from the database without creating it beforehand, or if I edit the information, then the Sport field in my model object does get populated. I don't know why this is happening, and I can't use the .Include in my generic service call (because not all BaseReferenceEntity classes have a foreign key pointing to Sport).
Please advise. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I must play Sherlock Holmes and try to derive what could be the content of CreateOrUpdate and FindById from the indications in your question:
You say that you don't use Include because of the generic service. I assume that you also don't use explicit loading (Load) because you would face the same problem that you cannot really make it generic.
Conclusion: Because the Sport navigation property in the SportDivision gets loaded in certain scenarios (Edit) this can only happen due to lazy loading. The conclusion is backed by the fact that the Sport property is marked as virtual.
Lazy loading relies on proxies. If your SportDivision entity is a proxy then
either loading the Sport entity works
or you get an exception telling you that the context is already disposed (if you have disposed the context)
Number 2 is not the case -> Conclusion: Number 1 must be the case if the pre-condition is fulfilled
But Number 1 also isn't the case (loading Sport does not work)
Conclusion: The pre-condition that your SportDivision entity is a proxy is not true.
So: SportDivision is not a proxy. Could this mean that you have lazy loading in the context disabled? No: Because you are saying that editing works it means that when you load entities from the database they are loaded as proxies and support lazy loading.
Editing works, lazy loading isn't disabled but creating a new entity does not work in the way that the Sport entity is loaded when you proceed to use the newly created entity.
Conclusion: Your newly created entity (returned from CreateOrUpdate) is not a proxy and CreateOrUpdate looks similar to this:
public TEntity CreateOrUpdate(TEntity raw) where TEntity : class
{
if (blabla)
; //update
else
{
context.Set<TEntity>().Add(raw);
context.SaveChanges();
return raw;
}
}
and FindById is just:
public TEntity FindById(int id)
{
return context.Set<TEntity>().Find(id);
}
Since you are passing raw directly into the Add method of the DbSet<T> the question raises where does raw come from and how is it created.
Obviously AutoMapper creates the entity after this line: var raw = Mapper.Map<TModel, TEntity>(entry);
How does Automapper create an entity? Probably by calling new TEntity or by using some reflection code like Activator.CreateInstance or...
It doesn't really matter how, but for sure AutoMapper doesn't instantiate an Entity Framework proxy which had to be created by:
var entity = context.Set<TEntity>().Create();
If all this is true, I feel totally screwed by AutoMapper and generic excesses. If all this wouldn't be generic we could solve the problem by:
context.Set<SportDivision>().Add(raw);
context.SaveChanges();
context.Entry(raw).Reference(r => r.Sport).Load();
Instead we must try some ugly tricks now:
context.Set<TEntity>().Add(raw);
context.SaveChanges();
context.Entry(raw).State = EntityState.Detached;
// We hope that raw is now really out of the context
raw = context.Set<TEntity>().Find(raw.Id);
// raw must be materialized as a new object -> Hurray! We have a proxy!
return raw;
(I'm really not sure if the Detached trick above does work. Aside from that you are forced to reload an entity from the database you just have created and saved which is stupid somehow.)
Potential trick number 2 (without reloading from DB but for the price of being a further step more ugly):
context.Set<TEntity>().Add(raw);
context.SaveChanges();
context.Entry(raw).State = EntityState.Detached;
// We hope that raw is now really out of the context
var anotherRaw = context.Set<TEntity>().Create(); // Proxy!
anotherRaw.Id = raw.Id;
context.Set<TEntity>().Attach(anotherRaw);
context.Entry(anotherRaw).CurrentValues.SetValues(raw);
context.Entry(anotherRaw).State = EntityState.Unchanged;
return anotherRaw; // Proxy! Lazy loading will work!
Does AutoMapper have a feature of a "custom allocator or instantiator" and can custom user data (a context) be supplied? Then there would be a chance to let AutoMapper call context.Set<TEntity>().Create();. Or is it possible to instantiate the object by hand, pass it to AutoMapper and AutoMapper just updates the object's properties?
BTW: The line...
context.Entry(anotherRaw).CurrentValues.SetValues(raw);
...is kind of EF's built-in "AutoMapper". The parameter of SetValues is a general System.Object (could be your ...Model object) and the method maps property values from the supplied object to properties of attached entities by identical property names. Maybe you can leverage this feature somehow instead of using the mapping from model to entity done by AutoMapper.