Sorting navigation properties in Entity Framework - sql-server-2008

Question

Consider the following database tables:
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Step]
(
[StepId] INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY,
[OrderIndex] INT NOT NULL
)
CREATE TABLE [dbo].[StepInput]
(
[StepInputId] INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY IDENTITY,
[StepId] INT NOT NULL,
[OrderIndex] INT NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [FK_StepInput_Step] FOREIGN KEY ([StepId]) REFERENCES [Step]([StepId]) ON DELETE CASCADE,
)
With the following POCOs:
public class Step
{
public virtual int StepId { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<StepInput> StepInputs { get; set; }
}
public class StepInput
{
public int StepInputId { get; set; }
public int StepId { get; set; }
public virtual int OrderIndex { get; set; }
}
I would like for StepInputs to be ordered by OrderIndex. Is there any way to setup the navigation property so that it is sorted automatically by EF, so that the user of Step does not have to call StepInputs.OrderBy every time?
I am using the database-first model.
Edit: I did realize that I could just add an OrderedInputs property to Step, which returns StepInputs.OrderBy(...), which solved the immediate problem, though I'm not sure about the performance implications. I am still curious as to whether there is a way to set this up in EF without having to use a custom property.

Answer 1

No way...! I think you have two tricks:
1) Create a static dbcontext, and for the first time, load the data you need into memory using .load() and perform your ordering, and then just use in-memory data in the Local property of your dbctx.<DbSet>s - an ugly way and most probably doesn't satisfy you...
2) Create a stored procedure to retrieve your data and perform ordering in database, and map that sp to an entity in your model.