I am using Self Tracking Entities with the Entity Framework and for some reason I am now getting an error when making a call to StartTracking() before I make changes to an entity.
My code is as follows:
BusinessUnit BusinessUnitObject = this.settingFacade.GetBusinessUnitByID(idToGet);
BusinessUnitObject.StartTracking();
All this does, is use an ID that we have, use the object context to read from the database, and then start tracking on it straight away.
The error is
Value cannot be null. Parameter name: trackingItem
Upon looking at the actual generated code of Entity Framework, the code throwing the error is:
public static void StartTracking(this IObjectWithChangeTracker trackingItem)
{
if (trackingItem == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("trackingItem");
}
trackingItem.ChangeTracker.ChangeTrackingEnabled = true;
}
The parameter "trackingItem" is null, but I am unsure why.
Has anyone come across this before? I have been using STE's the last couple of months and this is the first time this has happened.
EDIT -------------------
Sorry folks...after a lot of refactoring of my code I have introduced a bug, and the object itself was null, which I was then calling StartTracking() on!
Related
This is a general question about CakePHP 3, I have a substantial OOP background, but I'm new to PHP and am stuck using Cake for a project. I guess this revolves around conventions.
So say I have some model entity, Apple, with a matching ApplesTable class. In the ApplesTable class, I've implemented a method to find something from the database. If I was in the ApplesController, my understanding is that I could write: $this->Apples->method() and it would be fine.
However, if I want to access that method in say, the OrangesController, just typing the same thing gives me a fatal error saying "Call to a member function method() on boolean." From what I found researching, it could be something with it not being able to load the model element so the method call written above would just be producing false, creating the error.
Again, I'm newer to PHP and totally new to Cake, so some of the conventions with the framework are still a little hazy. Hopefully someone can help clear this up -- thanks!
Try loadModel(), when you need to use a model table/collection that is not the controller’s default one.
// ApplesController
loadModel("Oranges");
$this->Oranges->makeJuice();
$orange_sugar = $this->Oranges->sugar;
or if your models are associated,
// ApplesController
$this->Apples->Oranges->makeJuice();
$orange_sugar = $this->Apples->Oranges->sugar;
This is related (but fairly independent) to my question here: Why SELECT N + 1 with no foreign keys and LINQ?
I've tried using DataLoadOptions to force eager loading, but I'm not getting it to work.
I'm manually writing my LinqToSQL mappings and was first following this tutorial: http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/43025/A-LINQ-Tutorial-Mapping-Tables-to-Objects
Now I've found this tutorial: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386950.aspx
There's at least one major difference that I can spot. The first tutorial suggest returning ICollection's and the second EntitySet's. Since I'm having issues I tried to switch my code to return EntitySet's, but then I got issue with needing to reference System.Data.Linq in my Views and Controllers. I tried to do that, but didn't get it to work. I'm also not sure it's a good idea.
At this point, I just want to know which return type I'm supposed to use for a good design? Can I have a good design and still be able to force eager loading in specific cases?
A lot of trial and error finally lead to the solution. It's fine to return ICollection or IList, or in some cases IEnumerable. Some think returning EntitySet or IQueryable is a bad idea, and I agree because it exposes to much of the datasource/technology. Some thing returning IEnumerable is a bad idea and it seems like it depends. The problem beeing that it can be used for lazy loading, which may or may not be a good thing.
One reoccuring issue is that of returning paged results with a count for the total items outside the page. This can be solved by creating a CollectionPage<T> ( http://www.codetunnel.com/blog/post/104/how-to-properly-return-a-paged-result-set-from-your-repository )
More on what to return from repositories here:
http://www.codetunnel.com/blog/post/103/should-you-return-iqueryablet-from-your-repositories
http://www.shawnmclean.com/blog/2011/06/iqueryable-vs-ienumerable-in-the-repository-pattern/
IEnumerable vs IQueryable for Business Logic or DAL return Types
List, IList, IEnumerable, IQueryable, ICollection, which is most flexible return type?
Even more important, DataLoadOptions can do the eager loading! I've now restructured my code so much I'm not 100% sure what I did wrong to cause DataLoadOptions not to work. As far as I've gathered I should get an exception if I tried to add it to the DataContext after the DataContext has been used, which it didn't. What I've found out though is to think in the Unit of Work-pattern. However, for my needs (and because I don't want to return EntitySet or IQueryable from my repositories) I'm not going to implement a cross-repository Unit of Work. Instead I'm just thinking about my repository methods as their own small Unit of Work. I'm sure there's bad things about this (for instance it might cause more round-trips to the database in some update scenarios), and in the future I might reconcider. However it's a simple clean solution.
More info here:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/7941017/1312533
http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/getting-started-with-ef-using-mvc/implementing-the-repository-and-unit-of-work-patterns-in-an-asp-net-mvc-application
This is what I ended up with in my repository:
public class SqlLocalizedCategoriesRepository : ILocalizedCategoriesRepository
{
private string connectionString;
private HttpContextBase httpContext;
public SqlLocalizedCategoriesRepository(string connectionString, HttpContextBase httpContext) // Injected with Inversion of Control
{
this.connectionString = connectionString;
this.httpContext = httpContext;
}
public CollectionPage<Product> GetProductsByLocalizedCategory(string category, int countryId, int page, int pageSize)
{
// Setup a DataContext
using (var context = new DataContext(connectionString)) // Because DataContext implements IDisposable it should be disposed of
{
var dlo = new System.Data.Linq.DataLoadOptions();
dlo.LoadWith<Product>(p => p.ProductSubs); // In this case I want all ProductSubs for the Products, so I eager load them with LoadWith. There's also AssociateWith which can filter what is eager loaded.
context.LoadOptions = dlo;
context.Log = (StringWriter)httpContext.Items["linqToSqlLog"]; // For logging queries, a must so you can see what LINQ to SQL generates
// Query the DataContext
var cat = (from lc in context.GetTable<LocalizedCategory>()
where lc.CountryID == countryId && lc.Name == category
select lc.Category).First(); // Gets the category into memory. Might be some way to not get it into memory by combining with the next query, but in my case my next step is that I'm also going to need the Category anyway so it's not worth doing because I'm going to restructure this code to take a categoryId parameter instead of the category parameter.
var products = (from p in context.GetTable<Product>()
where p.ProductCategories.Any(pm => pm.Category.CategoryID == cat.CategoryID)
select p); // Generates a single query to get the the relevant products, which with DataLoadOptions loads related ProductSubs. It's important that this is just a query and not loaded into memory since we're going to split it into pages.
// Return the results
var pageOfItems = new CollectionPage<Product>
{
Items = products.Skip(pageSize * (page - 1)).Take(pageSize).ToList(), // Gets the page of products into memory
TotalItems = products.Count(), // Get to total count of items belonging to the Category
CurrentPage = page
};
return pageOfItems;
}
}
}
This is a general programming question, not pertaining to any specific language.
A new programmer typically will write a method that calculates some value, then returns the value:
public Integer doSomething()
{
// Calculate something
return something;
}
public void main()
{
Integer myValue = doSomething();
}
But when an exception occurs during the calculation of something, what is the best way to handle the exception, especially when giving the user feedback? If you do a try/catch of the calculation of something and if an exception is caught, what do you return? Nothing was calculated, so do you return null? And once you return it (whatever it may be), do you need to do another try/catch in the parent method that checks to see if a valid value was returned? And if not, then make sure the user is given some feedback?
I have heard arguments on both sides of the table about never returning values at all, but instead setting calculated values as pointers or global variables and instead returning only error codes from methods, and then (in the parent method) simply handling the error codes accordingly.
Is there a best practice or approach to this? Are there any good resources that one could access to learn more about the best way to handle this?
UPDATE for Clarification
Consider the following code:
public void main()
{
int myValue = getMyValue();
MyUIObject whatever = new MyUIObject();
whatever.displayValue(myValue); // Display the value in the UI or something
}
public Integer getMyValue()
{
try
{
// Calculate some value
} catch (exception e) {
// ??
}
return value;
}
I call the method to get some int value, then I return it. Back in main(), I do something with the value, like show it in the Log in this case. Usually I would display the value in the UI for the user.
Anyways, if an exception is caught in getMyValue(), so does value get returned but it's null? What happens in main() then? Do I have to test if it's a valid value in main() as well?
I need the program to handle the error accordingly and continue. Someone below suggested displaying the appropriate information in the UI from within the getMyValue() method. I see two potential issues:
It seems like I would be mixing the business logic with (in this case) the logic for the UI.
I would have to pass a reference of the MyUIObject to the getMyValue() or something so I could access it from within the function. In the above simple example that is no big deal, but if there is a BUNCH of UI elements that need to be updated or changed based off of what happens in getMyValue(), passing them all might be a bit much...
I've read a bunch about the fundamentals of all of this but I can't seem to find a straight answer for the above situation. I appreciate any help or insight.
I think you do not quite understand exceptions.
If you throw an exception, you do not return from the function normally:
public Integer doSomething()
{
throw new my_exception();
// The following code does NOT get run
return something;
}
public void main()
{
Integer myValue = doSomething();
}
The main advantages of exceptions are:
You can write your code as though everything is succeeding, which is usually clearer
Exceptions are hard to ignore. If an exception is unhandled, typically an obvious and loud error will be given, with a stack trace. This contrasts with error codes, where it is much easier to ignore the error handling than not.
I recommend this post by Eric Lippert, which discusses exceptions and when it is and is not appropriate to handle them.
UPDATE (in response to comment):
You can absolutely handle an exception and continue, you do this by catching the exception.
eg:
try
{
// Perform calculation
}
catch (ExceptionType ex)
{
// A problem of type 'ExceptionType' occurred - you can do whatever you
// want here.
// You could log it to a list, which will be later shown to the user,
// you could set a flag to pop up a dialog box later, etc
}
// The code here will still get run even if ExceptionType was thrown inside
// the try {} block, because we caught and handled that exception.
The nice thing about this is that you know what kind of thing went wrong (from the exception type), as well as details (by looking into the information in ex), so you
hopefully have the information you need to do the right thing.
UPDATE 2 in response to your edit:
You should handle the exception at the layer where you are able to respond in the way you want. For your example, you are correct, you should not be catching the exception so deep down in the code, since you don't have access to the UI, etc and you thus can't really do anything useful.
How about this version of your example code:
public void main()
{
int myValue = -1; // some default value
String error = null; // or however you do it in Java (:
try
{
getMyValue();
}
catch (exception e)
{
error = "Error calculating value. Check your input or something.";
}
if (error != null)
{
// Display the error message to the user, or maybe add it to a list of many
// errors to be displayed later, etc.
// Note: if we are just adding to a list, we could do that in the catch().
}
// Run this code regardless of error - will display default value
// if there was error.
// Alternatively, we could wrap this in an 'else' if we don't want to
// display anything in the case of an error.
MyUIObject whatever = new MyUIObject();
whatever.displayValue(myValue); // Display the value in the UI or something
}
public Integer getMyValue()
{
// Calculate some value, don't worry about exceptions since we can't
// do anything useful at this level.
return value;
}
Exceptions is a property of object oriented languages (OOL). If you use OOL, you should prefer exceptions. It is much better than to return error codes. You can find nice examples how the error-codes approach generates a vastly longer source code than exceptions based code. For example if you want to read a file and do something with it and save in a different format. You can do it in C without exceptions, but your code will be full of if(error)... statements, maybe you will try to use some goto statements, maybe some macros to make it shorter. But also absolutely nontransparent and hard to understand. Also you can often simply forget to test the return value so you don't see the error and program goes on. That's not good. On the other hand if you write in OOL and use exceptions, your source code focuses on "what to do when there is no error", and error handling is in a different place. Just one single error handling code for many possible file errors. The source code is shorter, more clear etc.
I personally would never try to return error codes in object oriented languages. One exception is C++ where the system of exceptions have some limitations.
You wrote:
I have heard arguments on both sides of the table about never returning values at all, but instead setting calculated values as pointers or global variables and instead returning only error codes from methods, and then (in the parent method) simply handling the error codes accordingly.
[EDIT]
Actually, excetion can be seen as error code, which comes along with the relative message, and you as the programmer should know where your exception must be caught, handled and eventually display to the user. As long as you let the exception to propagate (going down in the stack of called functions) no return values are used, so you don't have to care about handling related missed values. Good exception handling is a quite tough issue.
As jwd replied, I don't see the point to raise an exception in a method and then handle the excpetion in the same method just to return an error value. To clarify:
public Integer doSomething(){
try{
throw new my_exception();}
catch{ return err_value;}
}
is pointless.
I am using Moq, NUnit, WPF, MVVM, Ninject.
I am writing a test for my LoginViewModel, and in the test when I use the constructor of the LoginViewModel to create a new instance, I am getting a NullReferenceException error. The code compiles and runs, (i.e. when I run the program the LoginView shows, and works with the LoginViewModel to create the correct behaviour etc) but for some reason the UnitTest is crashing.
this is the constructor:
public LoginViewModel(ILoginServices loginServices,IDialogService dialogServices)
{
InitializeFields();
_loginServices = loginServices;
_dialogService = dialogServices;
DomainList = _loginServices.GetDomainListing();
}
I have mocked the dependencies as follows:
Mock<ILoginServices> moq = new Mock<ILoginServices>();
moq.Setup(log =>
log.LoginUser(It.IsAny<string>(),
It.IsAny<string>(),
It.IsAny<string>()))
.Callback<string, string, string>((i, j, k) => CheckArgs(i, j, k));
moq.Setup(log2 =>
log2.GetDomainListing()).Returns(new List<string> { "Domain" });
Mock<IDialogService> moq2 = new Mock<IDialogService>();
I have also tried inserting real services as the parameters.
I have verified that the mocks do work, and the objects these mocks
return are not null.
I have commented out all the code in the constructor.
I have tried inserting the line
LoginViewModel test = new LoginViewModel(_fakeLoginService,_fakeDialogService);
in front of the call to the constructor (to see if it had to do with the original local variable being disposed or something before) and this line crashed instead.
From all I can see this must be the constructor,(but not the code I have written inside it) and that this is solely related to NUnit / Moq as my code still compiles and runs fine.
I have no idea on this one guys, can anyone point me in the right direction?
[Edit]
Ok so I have run through the code and the error comes from this line of code:
ImageSource = (ImageSource)Application.Current.FindResource(_imageName);
This code is going to a ImageDictionary and getting a reference to the image for an undo button in the WindowViewModel (which my LoginViewModel inherits).
My hypotheses as to why its working in the normal running of the application, but not in the testing are:
1) Because I am running the program code through NUnit, the Application.Current object isnt getting property assigned/there is no Application.Current object to get.
**or**
2) Something to do with the fact that because the program code is being run in NUnit, the code doesn't have access to/can't resolve the ImageDictionary to find the image.
I'm leaning more strongly to the first hypothesis, but I'm as of yet not 100% sure, and I am having trouble finding the values of the Application.Current at runtime, cause when I move my cursor over the code the tooltip that normally appears showing the detail of the object that is not appearing.
My new question is: Does any of this make sense? Do you guys know if the Application.Current object exists / can be accessed when running the testing project through NUnit?
Any help will be appreciated.
You are correct. Application.Current is null for Unit tests. You can work around this by injecting the Application object as referencing singletons in code can make life tricky.
I am porting an existing application from Linq to SQL to Entity Framework 4 (default code generation).
One difference I noticed between the two is that a foreign key property is not updated when resetting the object reference. Now I need to decide how to deal with this.
For example supposing you have two entity types, Company and Employee. One Company has many Employees.
In Linq To SQL, setting the company also sets the company id:
var company=new Company(ID=1);
var employee=new Employee();
Debug.Assert(employee.CompanyID==0);
employee.Company=company;
Debug.Assert(employee.CompanyID==1); //Works fine!
In Entity Framework (and without using any code template customization) this does not work:
var company=new Company(ID=1);
var employee=new Employee();
Debug.Assert(employee.CompanyID==0);
employee.Company=company;
Debug.Assert(employee.CompanyID==1); //Throws, since CompanyID was not updated!
How can I make EF behave the same way as LinqToSQL? I had a look at the default code generation T4 template, but I could not figure out how to make the necessary changes. It seems like a one-liner should do the trick, but I could not figure out how to get the ID property for a given reference.
From what I can see in the default T4 template, the foreign key properties of entities are not directly linked to the entity reference associated with the key.
Theres a couples to approach to your issue regarding migration from Linq to SQL to EF4. One of them would be to register to the AssociationChanged event of your associations so that it updates your field automatically. In your context, one approach could be something like like this :
// Extends Employee entity
public partial class Employee
{
private void CompanyChanged(Object sender, CollectionChangeEventArgs e)
{
// Apply reactive changes; aka set CompanyID
// here
}
// Create a default constructor that registers your event handler
public Employee()
{
this.CompanyReference.AssociationChanged += CompanyChanged;
}
}
Personally, if you want to limit the maintenance required to maintain this sort of logic, I'd suggest changing your T4 template (either change it yourself or find one) so that it sets the CompanyId when Company is changed as shown previously.
Gil Fink wrote a pretty good introdution to T4 templates with EF4, and you can look up Scott Hanselman wrapped a good bunch of useful links and ressources to work with T4 templates.
On a last note, unless I'm mistaken, accessing foreign keys directly as propeties of an entity is something new from EF3.5 to 4. In 3.5, only way you could access it was through the associated entity (Employee.Company.CompanyID). I believe the feature was added in EF4 so that you didn't have to load associations (using "include") in order to get the foreign key when selecting from the data store.
Perhaps EF's take on this would be, if you got the association, go through the association to get the ID, first and foremost. But that's just speculation as I got no quotes to back it up.
[EDIT 2010-06-16]:
After a quick readthrough and analysis of the edmx xml elements, I found one called ReferentialConstraint which appears to contain foreign key fields to a specfic FK_Relation.
Heres the code snippet to modify inside a default T4 edmx template, section Write Navigation Properties. (Template_RegionNavigationProperties), around line 388 of an unmodified template. Try to ignore the horrible formatting...
<#=code.SpaceAfter(NewModifier(navProperty))#><#=Accessibility.ForProperty(navProperty)#> <#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#> <#=code.Escape(navProperty)#>
{
<#=code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForGetter(navProperty))#>get
{
return ((IEntityWithRelationships)this).RelationshipManager.GetRelatedReference<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>>("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>").Value;
}
<#=code.SpaceAfter(Accessibility.ForSetter(navProperty))#>set
{
// edit begins here
if(value != null)
{
// Automatically sets the foreign key attributes according to linked entity
<#
AssociationType association = GetSourceSchemaTypes<AssociationType>().FirstOrDefault(_ => _.FullName == navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName);
foreach(var cons in association.ReferentialConstraints)
{
foreach(var metadataProperty in cons.FromProperties)
{
#>
this.<#=metadataProperty.Name#> = value.<#=metadataProperty.Name#>;
//this._<#=metadataProperty.Name#> = value._<#=metadataProperty.Name#>; // use private field to bypass the OnChanged events, property validation and the likes..
<#
}
}
#>
}
else
{
// what usually happens in Linq-to-SQL when an association is set to null
// here
}
// edit ends here
((IEntityWithRelationships)this).RelationshipManager.GetRelatedReference<<#=MultiSchemaEscape(navProperty.ToEndMember.GetEntityType(), code)#>>("<#=navProperty.RelationshipType.FullName#>", "<#=navProperty.ToEndMember.Name#>").Value = value;
}
}
I roughly tested it, but it's a given that theres some validation and such missing. Perhaps it could give you a tip towards a solution regardless.
Thanks for this solution. I've enhanced it (does not depend on specific naming conventions anymore) and encluded in a fix that also fixes an other issue with the Entity Framework template.
Check here for my solution and fixed code generation template