Passing multiple Include statements into a repository? - entity-framework-4.1

Question

I am trying to figure out a way to pass a collection of include statements into my repository so that I can have it include specific entities. Below is some sample code from my repository.
public TEntity GetById(Guid id)
{
return id != Guid.Empty ? GetSet().Find(id) : null;
}
private IDbSet<TEntity> GetSet()
{
return _unitOfWork.CreateSet<TEntity>();
}
The GetByID method calls the GetSet to return the entity set. I was thinking, if I could somehow pass in a collection of entities to include (via an expression) as part of my GetById, this way I wouldn't have to expose the GetSet to my services. So, something like this:
var entity = _repository.GetById(theId, e => {e.Prop1, e.Prop2, e.Prop3});
I could then pass that expression into my GetSet method and pass it into an include statement. Thoughts?

Answer 1

I have done something like this in my code recently. Would the following work for you?
public TEntity GetById(Guid id, params Expression<Func<TEntity, object>>[] includeProperties)
{
if (id == Guid.Empty) return null;
var set = _unitOfWork.CreateSet<TEntity>();
foreach(var includeProperty in includeProperties)
{
set.Include(includeProperty);
}
return set.First(i => i.Id == id);
}
Then you would call it like this...
var entity = _repository.GetById(theId, e => e.Prop1, e=> e.Prop2, e=> e.Prop3);
I know this doesn't exactly follow your pattern, but I think you could refactor it as required.

Answer 2

I don't think Paige Cook's code will work quite as shown.
I've included a modified version of the code that should work instead:
public TEntity GetById(Guid id, params Expression<Func<TEntity, object>>[] includeProperties)
{
if (id == Guid.Empty) return null;
IQueryable<TEntity> set = _unitOfWork.CreateSet<TEntity>();
foreach(var includeProperty in includeProperties)
{
set = set.Include(includeProperty);
}
return set.First(i => i.Id == id);
}
I only spotted this by tracing the SQL generated by Entity Framework, and realised the original code was only giving the illusion of working, by using lazy-loading to populate the entities specified for inclusion.
There's actually a more terse syntax for applying the Include statements using the LINQ Aggregate method, which is in the blog post linked to. My post also improves the method slightly by having a fall-back to the Find method, when no includes are needed and also shows an example of how to implement a "GetAll" method, using similar syntax.

Answer 3

It's bad idea to store context in non-local space, for many reasons.
I modify Steve's code and get this for my ASP.NET MVC projects:
public aspnet_User FirstElement(Func<aspnet_User, bool> predicate = null, params Expression<Func<aspnet_User, object>>[] includes)
{
aspnet_User result;
using (var context = new DataContext())
{
try
{
var set = context.Users.AsQueryable();
for (int i = 0; i < includes.Count(); i++ )
set = set.Include(includes[i]);
if (predicate != null)
result = set.ToList().FirstOrDefault(predicate);
else
result = set.ToList().FirstOrDefault();
}
catch
{
result = null;
}
}
return result;
}

Answer 4

The include method can be strung together in your linq query like so:
var result = (from i in dbContext.TableName.Include("RelationProperty")
.Include("RelationProperty")
.Include("RelationProperty")
select i);