Entity framework linq query Include() multiple children entities

Question

Entity framework linq query Include() multiple children entities

entity-framework lazy-loading linq

Question

This may be a really elementry question but whats a nice way to include multiple children entities when writing a query that spans THREE levels (or more)?

i.e. I have 4 tables: Company, Employee, Employee_Car and Employee_Country

Company has a 1:m relationship with Employee.

Employee has a 1:m relationship with both Employee_Car and Employee_Country.

If i want to write a query that returns the data from all 4 the tables, I am currently writing:

Company company = context.Companies
                         .Include("Employee.Employee_Car")
                         .Include("Employee.Employee_Country")
                         .FirstOrDefault(c => c.Id == companyID);

There has to be a more elegant way! This is long winded and generates horrendous SQL

I am using EF4 with VS 2010

Nathan Liu

Popular Answer

EF 4.1 to EF 6

There is a strongly typed .Include which allows the required depth of eager loading to be specified by providing Select expressions to the appropriate depth:

using System.Data.Entity; // NB!

var company = context.Companies
                     .Include(co => co.Employees.Select(emp => emp.Employee_Car))
                     .Include(co => co.Employees.Select(emp => emp.Employee_Country))
                     .FirstOrDefault(co => co.companyID == companyID);

The Sql generated in both instances is still by no means intuitive, but seems performant enough. I've put a small example on GitHub here

EF Core

EF Core has a new extension method, .ThenInclude(), although the syntax is slightly different:

var company = context.Companies
                     .Include(co => co.Employees)
                           .ThenInclude(emp => emp.Employee_Car)
                      ...

As per the docs, I would keep the extra 'indent' in the .ThenInclude to preserve your sanity.

Obsolete Info (Don't do this):

The multiple grandchildren loading could be done in one step, but this requires a rather awkward reversal back up the graph before heading down the next node (NB: This does NOT work with AsNoTracking() - you'll get a runtime error):

var company = context.Companies
         .Include(co => 
             co.Employees
                .Select(emp => emp.Employee_Car
                    .Select(ec => ec.Employee)
                    .Select(emp2 => emp2.Employee_Country)))
         .FirstOrDefault(co => co.companyID == companyID);

So I would stay with the first option (one Include per leaf entity depth model).

StuartLC

View more on Stack Overflow

Accepted Answer

Use extension methods. Replace NameOfContext with the name of your object context.

public static class Extensions{
   public static IQueryable<Company> CompleteCompanies(this NameOfContext context){
         return context.Companies
             .Include("Employee.Employee_Car")
             .Include("Employee.Employee_Country") ;
     }

     public static Company CompanyById(this NameOfContext context, int companyID){
         return context.Companies
             .Include("Employee.Employee_Car")
             .Include("Employee.Employee_Country")
             .FirstOrDefault(c => c.Id == companyID) ;
      }

}

Then your code becomes

     Company company = 
          context.CompleteCompanies().FirstOrDefault(c => c.Id == companyID);

     //or if you want even more
     Company company = 
          context.CompanyById(companyID);

Entity framework linq query Include() multiple children entities

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Fastest Entity Framework Extensions

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