Currently I have an entity that is "geolocatable" via a SqlGeography column that I can use via expressions for filtering and sorting. I am already able to get all entities within distance x of point y and sort by entities closest to (or furthest from) point y. However, in order to return the distance from the entity to y I have to recalculate the distance in the application because I have not yet determined how to materialize the result of the distance calculation from the database to the entities in the IQueryable. This is a mapped entity and a great deal of application logic surrounds the type of entity returned so projecting it into a dynamic object is not a viable option for this implementation (though I understand how that would work). I have also tried using an unmapped object that inherits from the mapped entity but that suffers the same problems. Essentially, as I understand it, I should be able to define the getter of an unmapped property to assign a computed value in a queryable extension IF I modify the expression tree that represents the IQueryable but the how escapes me. I've written expressions in this manner before but I think I need to be able to modify the existing select rather than just chaining on a new Expression.Call which is unexplored territory for me.
The following should code should properly illustrate the problem:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;
using System.Data.Entity;
using System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration;
using System.Data.Entity.Spatial; // from Microsoft.SqlServer.Types (Spatial) NuGet package
using System.Linq;
public class LocatableFoo
{
[Key]
public int Id { get; set; }
public DbGeography Geolocation { get; set; }
[NotMapped]
public double? Distance { get; set; }
}
public class PseudoLocatableFoo : LocatableFoo
{
}
public class LocatableFooConfiguration : EntityTypeConfiguration<LocatableFoo>
{
public LocatableFooConfiguration()
{
this.Property(foo => foo.Id).HasColumnName("id");
this.Property(foo => foo.Geolocation).HasColumnName("geolocation");
}
}
public class ProblemContext : DbContext
{
public DbSet<LocatableFoo> LocatableFoos { get; set; }
protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
modelBuilder.Configurations.Add(new LocatableFooConfiguration());
base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
}
}
public class Controller
{
public Controller(ProblemContext context) // dependency injection
{
this.Context = context;
}
private ProblemContext Context { get; set; }
/* PROBLEM IN THIS METHOD:
* Do not materialize results (ie ToList) and then calculate distance as is done currently <- double calculation of distance in DB and App I am trying to solve
* Must occur prior to materialization
* Must be assignable to "query" that is to type IQueryable<LocatableFoo>
*/
public IEnumerable<LocatableFoo> GetFoos(decimal latitude, decimal longitude, double distanceLimit)
{
var point = DbGeography.FromText(string.Format("Point({0} {1})", longitude, latitude), 4326); // NOTE! This expects long, lat rather than lat, long.
var query = this.Context.LocatableFoos.AsQueryable();
// apply filtering and sorting as proof that EF can turn this into SQL
query = query.Where(foo => foo.Geolocation.Distance(point) < distanceLimit);
query = query.OrderBy(foo => foo.Geolocation.Distance(point));
//// this isn't allowed because EF doesn't allow projecting to mapped entity
//query = query.Select( foo => new LocatableFoo { Id = foo.Id, Geolocation = foo.Geolocation, Distance = foo.Geolocation.Distance(point) });
//// this isn't allowed because EF doesn't allow projecting to mapped entity and PseudoLocatableFoo is considered mapped since it inherits from LocatableFoo
//query = query.Select( foo => new PseudoLocatableFoo { Id = foo.Id, Geolocation = foo.Geolocation, Distance = foo.Geolocation.Distance(point) });
//// this isn't allowed because we must be able to continue to assign to query, type must remain IQueryable<LocatableFoo>
//query = query.Select( foo => new { Id = foo.Id, Geolocation = foo.Geolocation, Distance = foo.Geolocation.Distance(point) });
// this is what I though might work
query = query.SelectWithDistance(point);
this.Bar(query);
var results = query.ToList(); // run generated SQL
foreach (var result in results) //problematic duplicated calculation
{
result.Distance = result.Geolocation.Distance(point);
}
return results;
}
// fake method representing lots of app logic that relies on knowing the type of IQueryable<T>
private IQueryable<T> Bar<T>(IQueryable<T> foos)
{
if (typeof(T) == typeof(LocatableFoo))
{
return foos;
}
throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("foos");
}
}
public static class QueryableExtensions
{
public static IQueryable<T> SelectWithDistance<T>(this IQueryable<T> queryable, DbGeography pointToCalculateDistanceFrom)
{
/* WHAT DO?
* I'm pretty sure I could do some fanciness with Expression.Assign but I'm not sure
* What to get the entity with "distance" set
*/
return queryable;
}
}
