loosing dataAnottation when upload model from database - asp.net-mvc-4

I have a big database existing database to comunicate with, and I'm using EF 5.0 database first, the problem I'm having is that if I create any data decoration like [stringlength(50)] on the class and then the databases is uploaded, when I "upload from database" all data annotations are gone. How can I do to keep them?

It's very simple: You Can't! Because those codes are auto-generated and will be over written on each model update or change.
However you can achieve what you need through extending models. Suppose that EF generated the following entity class for you:
namespace YourSolution
{
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
public partial class News
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public int UserID { get; set; }
public virtual UserProfile User{ get; set; }
}
}
and you want do some work arounds to preserve your you data annotations and attributes. So, follow these steps:
First, add two classes some where (wherever you want, but it's better to be in Models) like the following:
namespace YourSolution
{
[MetadataType(typeof(NewsAttribs))]
public partial class News
{
// leave it empty.
}
public class NewsAttribs
{
// Your attribs will come here.
}
}
then add what properties and attributes you want to the second class - NewsAttribs here. :
public class NewsAttrib
{
[Display(Name = "News title")]
[Required(ErrorMessage = "Please enter the news title.")]
public string Title { get; set; }
// and other properties you want...
}
Notes:
1) The namespace of the generated entity class and your classes must be the same - here YourSolution.
2) your first class must be partial and its name must be the same as EF generated class.
Go through this and your attribs never been lost again ...

The accepted answer may work for standard data operations, but I am trying to validate the model prior to the call to DbSet.Add using TryValidateObject. With the accepted answer, it is still not picking up on the data annotations.
What did work for me I found in a .NET Runtime GitHub thread, as proposed by what I'm inferring is one of the .NET developers.
Basically, this is a bug, and you have to force the model to recognize the metadata decorations using TypeDescriptor.AddProviderTransparent . . .
TypeDescriptor.AddProviderTransparent(new AssociatedMetadataTypeTypeDescriptionProvider(typeof(News), typeof(NewsAttrib)), typeof(News));
Once I make this call, TryValidateObject recognizes the data annotations and returns false when any of the constraints are not met.
Here's the link. I little more than half-way down, there's a working code sample in a .zip file.
https://github.com/dotnet/runtime/issues/46678

Related

Does including Collections in Entities violate what an entity is supposed to be?

I am building a Web API using Dapper for .NET Core and trying to adhere to Clean Architecture principles. The API is consumed by an external Angular front-end.
I have repositories that use Dapper to retrieve data from the database, and this data then passes through a service to be mapped into a DTO for display to the user.
It is my understanding that an entity should be an exact representation of the database object, with no extra properties, and that I should use DTOs if I require some additional properties to show the user (or if I wish to obscure certain properties from the user too).
Suppose I have a DTO:
public class StudentDTO
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public List<Assignment> Assignments { get; set;}
}
and its corresponding Entity:
public class Student
{
public Guid Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
With this model, should I want to get a student with all of their assignments, I'd need to have two repository calls, and do something like this in the service:
public StudentDTO GetById(Guid id)
{
var student = this.studentRepository.GetById(id);
var assignments = this.assignmentRepository.GetByStudentId(id);
return SomeMapperClass.Map(student, assignments);
}
But this seems inefficient and unnecessary. My question is, should I not just retrieve the Assignments when I get the student entity in the repository, using a JOIN? Or would this violate what an entity is supposed to be?
I apologise, I do realise this is a rather simple question, but I'd really like to know which method is the best approach, or if they both have their use cases
I think it would be more efficient, since map uses reflections, that is slower tens times
public StudentDTO GetById(Guid id)
{
var student = this.studentRepository.GetById(id);
student.Assignments = this.assignmentRepository.GetByStudentId(id);
return student;
}
but the common way is
return _context.Students.Include(i=>i.Assignments).FirstOrDefault(i=> i.Id==id);
This is why the generic repository is a bad idea in the most casses, since it is hard to guess what set of data you will need.

method within model in MVC

I have a model in my MVC app, 'designation'. I have a method getdesig() to simply return all of the designations. I originally had this in my controller but moved to my model recently, with the aim of decluttering my controller and making it thinner. Is this model a logical place to put such a method?
public class designation
{
[Key]
public int DesignationID { get; set; }
public string DesignationName { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<user> users { get; set; }
private ClaimContext db = new ClaimContext();
public List<designation> getdesig()
{
{
return (from c in db.designations
select c).ToList();
}
}
}
yes, however in more complicated scenarios where conditions exists the controller is the spot to determine "What" needs to be loaded or "how much" needs to be loaded based off the scenario/arguments. In this very simple example it is fine as you are just dumping all the data without regard to any context.
It is a good practice to keep your ViewModels as simple and specific to the View as possible, the ViewModel's job is to simply be a common store to drive the view. The view relies on the model to be set with the appropriate data, it is the job of the controller to determine context and what should be populated in the model.

RavenDB SaveChanges() not saving properties on derived class ([DataMember] used in other class)

I've recently upgraded to build 2230, and things are working just fine. However, I just updated the RavenDB .NET client assemblies and now I'm having this issue.
This code has been in place for a year or so. This is how I'm saving:
public void Save(EntityBase objectToSave)
{
using (IDocumentSession session = GetOptimisticSession())
{
session.Store(objectToSave, objectToSave.Etag);
session.SaveChanges();
}
}
And this is the object I'm saving.
public class InstallationEnvironment : EntityBase
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int LogicalOrder { get; set; }
}
Now the base class:
public class EntityBase : NotifyPropertyChangedBase
{
public string Id { get; set; } // Required field for all objects with RavenDB.
}
The problem is that the base class property (Id) is getting persisted in RavenDB, but the derived properties (Name, LogicalOrder) are not.
Why would only the base class properties be saved in RavenDB?
Got it. Through trial and error, I noticed that one derived property was being saved (on a different class than the one shown in my question), and that property was decorated with the [DataMember] attribute. I just recently added it because I'm creating a WCF service for my app, and I started by using that attribute on one property for testing.
As Ayende states here, you have to use [DataMember] on all properties, or on none of them. If [DataMember] exists on a property, all others will be ignored.
Note: This was a problem for me even though [DataMember] was specified on a property in a different class. It seems like if I use [DataMember] anywhere, I have to use it for everything.

How to map two components of the same type with Fluent NHibernate AutoMap Conventions

We are using Fluent NH with convention based mapping. I have the following:
public class Foo() : Entity
{
public BarComponent PrimaryBar { get; set; }
public BarComponent SecondaryBar { get; set; }
}
public class BarComponent
{
public string Name { get; set; }
}
I have it to the point where it will create the foo table with a single name field. I've tried the following Override and it doesn't work.
public class FooOverride : IAutoMappingOverride<Foo>
{
public void Override(AutoMapping<Foo> mapping)
{
mapping.Component(x => x.PrimaryBar).ColumnPrefix("primary");
mapping.Component(x => x.SecondaryBar).ColumnPrefix("secondary");
}
}
Do I really need to do a full override mapping or can what I have here be made to work somehow?
I ran into this a couple of years ago when I started with FNH. It's one of the few scenarios I've seen where FNH Automapping does not "just work".
The approach that was suggested to me at the time, which I've used successfully (with entities however, not components) is to create empty, intermediate entities, and reference them in the descendant class.
In your case, you could create two new, empty classes that inherit from BarComponent (say, PrimaryBarComponent and SecondaryBarComponent).
Then, in your Foo class, declare them as:
public PrimaryBarComponent PrimaryBar { get; set; }
public SecondaryBarComponent SecondaryBar { get; set; }
This is a kluge, in my opinion, but it works fine with entities and lists of entities, and does not require any overrides or conventions.
I've never used components with FNH, so I don't know if a similar approach will work, but it might be worth investigating.
I ended up getting the way I have described in the question working. It turned out to be a problem with our AutoMappingConfiguration which inherits from DefaultAutomappingConfiguration. We weren't identifying Components properly.

What's the practical way of serializing an instance of subclass by using DataContractSerializer?

What's the practical way of serializing an instance of subclass by using DataContractSerializer?
For example, here are the data types:
[DataContract]
public class Car
{
public Car()
{
Wheels = new Collection<Wheel>();
}
[DataMember]
public Collection<Wheel> Wheels { get; set; }
}
[DataContract]
public abstract class Wheel
{
[DataMember]
public string Name { get; set; }
}
[DataContract]
public class MichelinWheel : Wheel
{
[DataMember]
public string Wheel1Test { get; set; }
}
[DataContract]
public class BridgeStoneWheel : Wheel
{
[DataMember]
public string Wheel2Test { get; set; }
}
Then here is the code that creates a car with two differen wheels:
Car car = new Car();
MichelinWheel w1 = new MichelinWheel { Name = "o1", Wheel1Test = "o1 test" };
BridgeStoneWheel w2 = new BridgeStoneWheel { Name = "o2", Wheel2Test = "o2 test" };
car.Wheels.Add(w1);
car.Wheels.Add(w2);
Now if I try to serialize the car by using DataContractSerializer, I will get an exception that says MichelinWheel is not expected. And I have to modify the Wheel class like this to make it work:
[DataContract]
[KnownType(typeof(MichelinWheel))]
[KnownType(typeof(BridgeStoneWheel))]
public abstract class Wheel
{
[DataMember]
public string Name { get; set; }
}
But this approach is not practical, because I am not able to list all kinds of wheels before they are created. And changing the Wheel class every time after a new brand of wheel is created is also not practical, because they might by created in third-party code.
So, what is the practical approach of serializing an instance of a subclass when using DataContractSerializer?
Thanks
Check this article using DataContractResolver from WCF 4. You can also use KnownTypeAttribute with passing name of a method that will use reflection to get all types. Anyway service requires that all types are known before it starts.
There are several ways to make known types available to the service.
The simplest you have outlined above, but obviously this requires you to recompile when new types are added, and depending on your configuration can make it awkward to avoid circular dependencies.
You can also configure the KnownTypes:
through the service configuration file (service restart only required),
add them as service known types provided through a static method on the service interface which you could get through reflection as Ladislav Mrnka has indicated (you could probably reflect over all loaded assemblies and return all types that have the DataContact attribute on them as known types, but I couldn't find an example of that.)
implement your own way of getting them (perhaps through some bespoke configuration elements in the config file or just through a text file)