Entity Framework v4 POCO templates: repository returns object of incorrect type

Question

I've just implemented a repository based on EFv4 POCO entity templates.

When I do this

public Client Load(Guid firmId,
                   int prettyId)
{
    var client = (from c in _ctx.Clients where c.firm_id == firmId && c.PrettyId == prettyId select c).FirstOrDefault();
    return client;
}

the client returned is of type

{System.Data.Entity.DynamicProxies.Client_8E92CA62619EB03F03DF1A1FC60C5B21F87ECC5D85B65759DB3A3949B8A606D3}

What is happening here? I thought I would get rid of any reference to types from System.Data.Entity namespace. The returned instance should be of type Client, which is a simple POCO class.

Answer 1

I can confirm that the solution is to set

context.ProxyCreationEnabled = false;

which disables creation of dynamic proxy typed objects and leaves us with simple POCOs, which is what we were after with EF POCO templates in the first place.

But you lose lazy loading of navigation properties and change tracking on entities. For the first, you either have to use context.LoadProperty() or the Include() method on your ObjectQuery object. For the second, I do not know the solution yet (actually it doesn't really make sense to have change tracking on POCOs).

Also here is a similar question I would like to point out What are the downsides to turning off ProxyCreationEnabled for CTP5 of EF code first