How do get reference to a related parent object when selecting a list of child objects using entity framework

Question

Using EF how do i access values in a parent property when accessing a list of child objects.

i.e. I have a Project object and Timesheet object

Project
Id
Name
...

TimeSheet
ProjectId
UserId
Date
TimeSpent
...

I understand how to get back a Project and its related Timesheets but what if I want to get back all of the timesheets for a given user and then simply display the project name with each timesheet record.

e.g. ProjectName, Date, TimeSpent

Is it best practice to create a new entity to shape that result set or should i just be able to return IEnumerable and get access to the .Project.Name field.

This is super easy using Linq to Sql or just straight up ADO.net/SPs etc but Its killing me on EF..

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Children always have a relationship with their parents. In your case, it's probably called something like "TimeSheet.Project". So you can write a query like:

var q = from u in Context.Users
        where u.UserId == userId
        from ts in u.TimeSheets
        select new 
        {
            ProjectName = ts.Project.Name,
            Date = ts.Date,
            TimeSpent = ts.TimeSpent
        };