entity framework: how to assign foreign key in a entity..

Question

Hi all,

Here is my tables structure..

Profile: ProfileID (PK), ProfileName varchar(50), GenderID (Fk)

Gender: GenderID (PK), GenderName varchar(50)

Gender table has 2 possible values : Male, Female.

In entity framework, when I am updating the profile with GenderID, I use the following code:

        profile.GenderID = Repository.
                                GetGender(
                                    Request.Form["Profile.GenderName"].ToString()
                                ).GenderID;


        Repository.Save();

GetGender method looks like the following:

public Gender GetGender(string genderName)
{
    return (from gender in db.Genders
            where (gender.GenderName.Equals(genderName))
            select gender).First();

}

Is there a better way of doing it? I feel like I am not using Entity Framework like it should be...

If I assign the value to profile.Gender.GenderID as opposed to profile.GenderID then I am updating the original Gender Lookup table which is not what I want.

I am confused..

Thanks..

Answer 1

If the only thing you have to look up the gender is the text description, then that's the best you're going to do (although I would probably add StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase to the Equals). If you have the PK, there are other options.

Answer 2

It seems like a lot of effort to keep calling the database for this information. Could you not retrieve the pairs of values once, for example in Application_Start, put it in Cache, and then reference it as needed? After all, the values are not likely to change very often.