What are the alternatives to using Expand in a LINQ to ADO.net Data Service Query?

Question

I am wondering if there are any alternatives to using the Expand key word when performing an LINQ to ADO.net Data Services query. The expand method does get me the data I am interested in, but it requires me to know all of the sub-objects that I am going to be working with in advance. My absolute preference would be that those sub-objects would be lazy loaded for me when I access them, but this doesn't look to be an option (I could add this lazy loading to the get on that sub-object property, but it gets wiped out when I do an update of the data service reference).

Does anyone have any suggestions/best practices/alternatives for this situation? Thanks.

===== Example Code using Member that has a MailingAddress =====

Works:

var me = (from m in ctx.Member.Expand("MailingAddress")
          where m.MemberID == 10000
          select m).First();
MessageBox.Show(me.MailingAddress.Street);

Would Prefer (would really like if this then went and loaded the MailingAddress)

var me = (from m in ctx.Member
          where m.MemberID == 10000
          select m).First();
MessageBox.Show(me.MailingAddress.Street);

Or at least (note: something similar to this, with MailingAddressReference, works on the server side if I do so as LINQ to Entities in a Service Operation)

var me = (from m in ctx.Member
          where m.MemberID == 10000
          select m).First();
if (!(me.MailingAddress.IsLoaded())) me.MailingAddress.Load()
MessageBox.Show(me.MailingAddress.Street);

Answer 1

With LINQ to Entities you can also use the Include method. You can apply this to me after it's declared but before it's executed, e.g.:

me = me.Include("MailingAddress");

Answer 2

Loading sub-objects via ADO.net Data Services seem to have two choices:

Eager Loading

Accomplished by .Expand("[MemberVariableName]") on the LINQ to Data Services example

var me = (from m in ctx.Member.Expand("MailingAddress")          
         where m.MemberID == 10000          
         select m).First();
MessageBox.Show(me.MailingAddress.Street);

Lazy Loading

Accomplished by calling .LoadProperty on the context and passing it the variable and the property that should be lazy loaded.

var me = (from m in ctx.Member          
          where m.MemberID == 10000          
          select m).First();
ctx.LoadProperty(myMember, "MailingAddresses");
MessageBox.Show(me.MailingAddress.Street);

Answer 3

Has anyone managed to use Service Operations and use Include on the server side?

It appears to me that the EF loaded entities aren't passed back and it's entirely down to the client side to specify which entities are loaded.