Trouble Creating Specification Across Entities With NLinq

Question

I am using the Specification pattern, and have a working implementation (taken from the WhoCanHelpMe Codeplex project) for getting data via NLinq, generic repositories and all that goodness.

The root method is:

public IList<Case> GetCasesByUsername(string username)
{
    CaseByUserNameSpecification spc = new CaseByUserNameSpecification(username);
    return this.caseRepository.FindAll(spc).ToList();
}

The FindAll() method does the following:

public IQueryable<T> FindAll(ILinqSpecification<T, T> specification)
{
    return specification.SatisfyingElementsFrom(this.Session.Linq<T>());
}

And, SatisfyingElementsFrom() does this:

public virtual IQueryable<TResult> SatisfyingElementsFrom(IQueryable<T> candidates)
{
    if (this.MatchingCriteria != null)
    {
        return candidates.Where(this.MatchingCriteria).ToList().ConvertAll(this.ResultMap).AsQueryable();
    }

    return candidates.ToList().ConvertAll(this.ResultMap).AsQueryable();
}

So, for querying cases by CaseNb property of a Case, it's pretty straight-forward. A Specification like the one below works for me and gets the cases I'd want.

public class CaseByCaseNbSpecification : QuerySpecification<User>
{
    private string caseNb;

    public CaseByCaseNbSpecification(string caseNb)
    {
        this.caseNb = caseNb;
    }

    public string UserName
    {
        get { return this.caseNb; }
    }

    public override Expression<Func<Case, bool>> MatchingCriteria
    {
        get { return u => u.CaseNb.Equals(this.caseNb, StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase); }
    }

}

However, I am at a loss to understand how to do this when crossing multiple entities. What I'd like to have is a Specification that allows me to get Cases by UserName. Basically, in the database, there are three tables and these have been carried into entities. Here's are entities:

Here's the Case class:

public class Case : Entity
{
    private ICollection<CaseUser> caseUsers = new HashSet<CaseUser>();

    public virtual Patient Patient { get; set; }
    public virtual string CaseNb { get; set; }
    ...
    public virtual IEnumerable<CaseUser> CaseUsers { get { return caseUsers; } }
}

Here's the CaseUser:

public class CaseUser : Entity
{
    public virtual Case Case { get; set; }
    public virtual User User { get; set; }
    ...
}

And, User:

public class User : Entity
{
    private ICollection<CaseUser> caseUsers = new HashSet<CaseUser>();

    public virtual Account Account { get; set; }
    public virtual string UserName { get; set; }
    ...
    public virtual IEnumerable<CaseUser> CaseUsers { get { return caseUsers; } }
}

How would I write the Expression to get the data across the association table?

Answer 1

I believe your specification implementation should look something like this:

public class CaseByUsernameSpecification : QuerySpecification<Case> 
{ 
    private string userName; 

    public CaseByUsernameSpecification(string userName) 
    { 
        this.userName = userName; 
    } 

    public string UserName 
    { 
        get { return this.userName; } 
    } 

   public override Expression<Func<Case, bool>> MatchingCriteria 
    { 
        get { return c => c.CaseUsers.Any(cu => cu.User.Username == this.userName); } 
    } 

}