I have a very simple mockup I'm making for a client that uses the Northwind database. I have an EDMX file with three entities: Products, Categories, and Suppliers.
I'm trying to create a page that has a GridView that shows the products, including the category name and supplier name. With LINQ to SQL I can have the LinqDataSource control return the Products entity and then can have a TemplateField in the GridView like so:
<ItemTemplate>
<%# Eval("Category.CategoryName") %>
</ItemTemplate>
However, it seems the EntityDataSource is not playing so nicely. It's as if it won't lazy load the category data. I have a very simple EDS:
<asp:EntityDataSource ID="dsProducts" runat="server"
ConnectionString="name=NorthwindEntities"
DefaultContainerName="NorthwindEntities" EnableFlattening="False"
EntitySetName="Products">
</asp:EntityDataSource>
But the GridView does not show the category name. If I create a RowDataBound event handler for the GridView and get the Product entity being bound to the row, I see that the product's Category property returns Nothing. For example, if I do:
Protected Sub gvProducts_RowDataBound(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Web.UI.WebControls.GridViewRowEventArgs) Handles gvProducts.RowDataBound
If e.Row.RowType = DataControlRowType.DataRow Then
Dim p As NorthwindModel.Product = e.Row.DataItem
Dim catName = p.Category.CategoryName
End If
End Sub
I get a NullReferenceException when trying to do p.Category.CategoryName.
However, I know lazy loading works for the EDMX b/c if I write code in the Page_Load event handler like:
Dim context As New NorthwindModel.NorthwindEntities
Dim p = context.Products.Take(1).Single()
I can get the Category name via p.Category.CategoryName without error.
Is there some voodoo I need to do to get the EntityDataSource to include support for retrieving related entities?
Thanks
SOLUTION: I specified the Include property of the EntityDataSource, noting the entity objects to include. Specifically, I updated my EntityDataSource control's declarative markup to:
<asp:EntityDataSource ID="dsProducts" runat="server"
ConnectionString="name=NorthwindEntities"
DefaultContainerName="NorthwindEntities" EnableFlattening="False"
EntitySetName="Products" Include="Category,Supplier">
</asp:EntityDataSource>