Hello guys.
I've just started looking at EF code first approach and I've got a couple of questions. I've got the following model (simplified and just typed, so think of it as pseudocode):
public class Entity{
//other properties removed
private IList<Contact> _contacts = new List<Contact>();
public IEnumerable<Contract> Contacts{
get{ return new ReadOnlyCollection(_contacts); }
private set{_contacts = new List<Contact>(value);}
}
public void AddContact( Contact ct){
//checking logic removed
_contacts.Add(ct);
}
}
//simplified class (in real world, properties are readonly,
//there's a constructor which receives all the properties
//and there's some more logic for ensuring equality and hashcode generation)
public class Contact{
public String Value{get;set;}
public ContactKind ContactKind{get;set;}
}
public enum ContactKind{
Phone,
Email
}
In NH, I'm able to say that each entity has a collection of contact components. In practice, the mapping ends up adding a foreign key to the Contact table and it will always delete and insert all the contacts during an entity update operation. Notice that
this means that I don't need to change my domain and the contact class remains ignorant about its database persistence.
Is there a way to do this kind of thing in EF (with the code first approach)? All the examples I've seen treat the classes as entities and, in practice, that means adding an entity property to Contact that references the associated entity (or adding an int
property which has the id of the associated entity)...
thanks.
Luis Abreu
