Get EntityKey without loading referenced Entity

Question

Hi,

is it possible to get entity key from EntityReference property without loading it?

I tried:

entity.EntityKey.EntityKeyValues[0].Value

But if referenced entity isn't loaded by EntityReference.Load() method, EntityKey property is null.

Thank's a lot!

Answer 1

In EF 4, use FK associations instead of independent associations if you want this feature.

For EF 1, EntityKey will be null if the query.MergeOption is MergeOption.NoTracking.