MVC Kendo dropdown read/get items with join between a table and view

Question

I'm trying to populate a Kendo dropdown using a Read function in a controller, but do so in a way that allows me to get items from one table or a view, based on a column in the view.

Ex.

public class AlternateCountry  // <-- Table
{
    public Guid CountryGUID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}
public class Countries // <-- View
{
    public bool hasAltName { get; set; }
    public Guid GUID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

I want to show the "Countries" Name column value unless we have an alternate name for that country. Then it would show the Name column in the "AlternateCountry" table. Something like:

var getCountries = (from c in db.Countries
                            join alt in db.AlternateCountry on c.GUID equals alt.CountryGUID
                            where c.hasAltName == true
                            select new { 
                                GUID = c.GUID, 
                                Name = alt.Name 
                            }).ToList();
return Json(getCountries, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);

Problem is this doesn't account for when the alternate name is false, to grab "Name" from the Countries view. I can duplicate another of these blocks and change c.hasAltName == false, but how do I then combine both of these into one DataSourceResult set?

Answer 1

Actually, I was able to solve this with a union of two queries -- one for the ones without alternate names, one for those with alternate names:

var realCountries = (from c in db.Countries
                        where c.hasAltName == false
                        select new { 
                            GUID = c.GUID, 
                            Name = c.Name 
                        }).ToList();

var fakeCountries = (from c in db.Countries
                        join alt in db.AlternateCountry on c.GUID equals alt.CountryGUID
                        where c.hasAltName == true
                        select new { 
                            GUID = alt.GUID, 
                            Name = alt.Name 
                        }).ToList();

var allCountries = realCountries.Union(fakeCountries);
return Json(allCountries, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);