Delete using alternate key

Question

Since we can update an entity using an alternate key:

var entity = new Entity("my_entity", "my_alternate_key", "my_value");
entity["my_updated_field"] = "Update";
service.Update(entity);

I was expecting to be able to delete the same kind of way:

var ref = new EntityReference("my_entity", "my_alternate_key", "my_value");
service.Delete(ref);

But Delete can only take a Guid

Is there a way to delete a record using a an alternate key ?

I mean without retrieving it before

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 10 '17 at 13:58

3

You cannot delete by alternate key using the Organization Service. For that you need to have the guid of the record in question (e.g. by retrieving it first).

It is possible to delete using alternate keys via the Web API as shown on MSDN:

Any time you need to uniquely identify an entity to retrieve, update, or delete, you can use alternate keys configured for the entity

answered Jul 10 '17 at 13:58

Henrik H

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Ok that's what I saw too. Hoping that they'll implement this in the .NET SDK on the future. – Pierre de LESPINAY Jul 10 '17 at 14:28

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 10 '22 at 09:12

If someone stumbles over that question like me: Actually, you can delete by alternate key using the Organization Service. No clue if that feature was added in the past 5 years or was available all the time.

 var deleteRequest = new DeleteRequest
 {
       Target = new EntityReference("my_entity", "my_alternate_key", "my_value")
 };
 await client.ExecuteAsync(deleteRequest);

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 10 '17 at 13:49

0

You need to RetrieveMultiple to get the GUIDs that you want to delete, and then call Delete.

answered Jul 10 '17 at 13:49

mjwills

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I wanted to avoid retrieving first (mentionned in italic in the question) but that doesn't seem possible indeed – Pierre de LESPINAY Jul 10 '17 at 14:30

Delete using alternate key

3 Answers3