So I've got a nested data structure like this:
public class ContractTerm
{
public int ContractId { get; set; }
public string SectionId { get; set; }
public string SubsectionId { get; set; }
public string TermId { get; set; }
public int TermOrder { get; set; }
public TermItem TermNavigation { get; set; }
}
public class TermItem
{
public string SectionId { get; set; }
public string SubsectionId { get; set; }
public string TermId { get; set; }
public string Text { get; set; }
public ICollection<ContractTerm> ContractNavigation { get; set; }
}
I've also got a class to map the section/subsection pairings in a more EF-friendly way (IRL this is an enum with attribute values and a helper, but this class abstracts away some work not necessary to reproduce the issue):
public class Section
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string SectionId { get; set; }
public string SubsectionId { get; set; }
}
Both ContractTerm and TermItem have their own collections in a DbContext, and I'm trying to get a collection of all text entries assigned to specific Sections for a given ContractId. I have the following class to contain it:
public class TextsBySection
{
public string SectionName { get; set; }
public IEnumerable<string> Texts { get; set; }
}
I want to select a collection of TextsBySection, and have something like this:
public class ContractManager
{
//insert constructor initializing MyContext here
private MyContext Context { get; }
public IEnumerable<MyOutputClass> GetTerms(int contractId, IEnumerable<Section> sections)
{
Func<string, string, IEnumerable<string>> getBySection =
(section, subsection) => context.ContractTerms.Include(x => x.TermNavigation)
.Where(x => x.ContractId == contractId
&& x.SectionId == section
&& x.SubsectionId == subsection)
.Select(x => x.TermNavigation.Text);
var result = sections.Select(x => new MyOutputClass
{
SectionName = x.Name,
Texts = getBySection(x.SectionId, x.SubsectionId)
}).ToList();
return result;
}
}
This works fine and dandy, but it hits the database for every Section. I feel like there's got to be a way to use Join and/or GroupBy to make it only query once, but I can't quite see it. Something like this, perhaps:
var result = context.ContractTerms.Include(x => x.TermNavigation)
.Where(x => x.ContractId == contractId)
.Join(sections,
term => //something
section => //something
(term, section) => /*something*/)
If all this were in SQL, selecting the necessary data would be easy:
SELECT sections.name,
term_items.text
FROM contract_terms
JOIN term_items
ON term_items.section_id = contract_terms.section_id
AND term_items.subsection_id = contract_terms.subsection_id
AND term_items.term_id = contract_terms.term_id
JOIN sections --not a real table; just corresponds to sections argument in method
ON sections.section_id = contract_terms.section_id
AND sections.subsection_id = contract_terms.subsection_id
...and then I could group the results in .NET. But I don't understand how to make a single LINQ query that would do the same thing.
I changed my answer, well I would do something like this... maybe this may help you.
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
List<Section> sections = new List<Section>();
List<ContractTerm> contractTerms = new List<ContractTerm>();
List<TermItem> termItens = new List<TermItem>();
//considering lists have records
List<TextsBySection> result = (from contractTerm in contractTerms
join termItem in termItens
on new
{
contractTerm.SectionId,
contractTerm.SubsectionId,
contractTerm.TermId
}
equals new
{
termItem.SectionId,
termItem.SubsectionId,
termItem.TermId
}
join section in sections
on new
{
contractTerm.SectionId,
contractTerm.SubsectionId
} equals new
{
section.SectionId,
section.SubsectionId
}
select
new
{
sectionName = section.Name,
termItemText = termItem.Text
}).GroupBy(x => x.sectionName).Select(x => new TextsBySection()
{
SectionName = x.Key,
Texts = x.Select(i=> i.termItemText)
}).ToList();
}