How can we apply conditional include using includeProperties in generaic repository pattern?

Question

We are using Entity framework along with the generic repository pattern.

When loading multiple entities we use includeProperties string filter in generic repository pattern.

Following is the code I have in my service class,

customerRepository.Get (filter: c => ! c.IsDeleted, includeProperties : "Orders");

Following is the code I have in my Generic Repository

 public virtual IEnumerable<TEntity> Get(
            Expression<Func<TEntity, bool>> filter = null,
            Func<IQueryable<TEntity>, IOrderedQueryable<TEntity>> orderBy = null,
            string includeProperties = "",
            Func<TEntity, TEntity> selectColumns = null)
{
    IQueryable<TEntity> query = dbSet;

    if (filter != null)
    {
        query = query.Where(filter);
    }

    if (selectColumns != null)
    {
        query = query.Select(selectColumns).AsQueryable();
    }

    query = includeProperties.Split(new[] { ',' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries).Aggregate(query, (current, includeProperty) => current.Include(includeProperty));

    return orderBy != null ? orderBy(query).ToList() : query.ToList();
}

It is possible that a customer can have multiple orders which are already deleted. However using above includeProperties we are only able to load all orders of a customer.

How can we load only non deleted orders of a customer?

i.e. How can we apply conditional include using includeProperties in generaic repository pattern?

We tried the code below but it did not work:

customerRepository.Get (filter: c => ! c.IsDeleted && ! c.Orders.IsDeleted, includeProperties : "Orders");

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

1

Note that it is not currently possible to filter which related entities are loaded. Include will always bring in all related entities. Msdn Reference

In this repository pattern you cannot do this with this specified method.

You can extend your repository to return IQuerable and do the same.

public virtual IQueryable<TEntity> GetAsQueryable(Expression<Func<TEntity, bool>> where)
{
    return _dataContext.TEntity.Where(where).AsQueryable();
}

See reference

Request this feature here

In order to filter child collection you need something similar to this.

var anonymousProjection = dbContext.CustomerEntity
                                 .Where(c => ! c.IsDeleted)
                                 .Select(x=> new 
                                  {
                                       customers = x,
                                       orders = x.Orders.Where(h=>h.IsDeleted)
                                  }).ToList();

Similar answer

edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

Community

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answered Mar 28 '16 at 10:06

Eldho

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Thanks for letting me know that it is not possible to filter related entities. However for the anonymous projection in your comment above is not helpful due to below reason: 1: We are using entity framework to load the entities and save the same, by changing required properties values only. 2: In the case of anonymous project above, the customer object is not an object which is tied with dbContext, however it is anonymous. 3: Because of this we are not able to modify and save the customer objects. It only helps during select queries. – Rakesh Guranani Mar 28 '16 at 11:09
You could still try `var customers = anonymousProjection.Select(x=>x.Customers).ToList()` this will convert to strongly typed without losing the relation with orders entities. Still this is tracked by context and you can still make changes and save to database – Eldho Mar 28 '16 at 11:22

How can we apply conditional include using includeProperties in generaic repository pattern?

1 Answers1