The Weird and The Wonderful

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No foreign keys on the first date.

Brady Kelly9-Dec-12 2:21

Brady Kelly

9-Dec-12 2:21

I wrote this little workaround earlier this year. EF complains about an insert where ParentId is set, but allows me to set it with an update.

// TODO Address this cluster-wtf.
using (var scope = new TransactionScope(TransactionScopeOption.Required, new TransactionOptions { IsolationLevel = IsolationLevel.ReadCommitted }))
{
    if (newProject.ParentId != null)
    {
        // I don't know why I need this, but EF won't insert with a ParentId, but allows me to set it immediately after.
        int parentId = newProject.ParentId.Value;
        newProject.ParentId = null;
        _projectRepository.Insert(newProject);
        newProject.ParentId = parentId;
        _projectRepository.Update(newProject);
    }
    else
    {
        _projectRepository.Insert(newProject);
    }
    scope.Complete();
}

Re: No foreign keys on the first date.

KP Lee11-Dec-12 8:17

KP Lee

11-Dec-12 8:17

Assuming this is a SQL Server connection, I don't think you can lay this directly at SQL's door, but you might want to see if triggers are involved and see what they do on insert/update. Maybe the update trigger on the child will insert the parentID in the parent table if it doesn't exist?

No, that doesn't make sense, the update should fail with a foreign key constraint failure before it reaches the trigger.

So, when it complains, what is its complaint?

Re: No foreign keys on the first date.

Brady Kelly11-Dec-12 8:34

Brady Kelly

11-Dec-12 8:34

Something long winded about referential integrity.

Re: No foreign keys on the first date.

KP Lee11-Dec-12 11:33

KP Lee

11-Dec-12 11:33

Brady Kelly wrote:
Something long winded

What else is new with SQL? Big Grin | :-D

Re: No foreign keys on the first date.

Pete O'Hanlon11-Dec-12 9:10

Pete O'Hanlon

11-Dec-12 9:10

Do you have an insert trigger behind this table in the database by any chance? It would seem to be consistent.

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Re: No foreign keys on the first date.

Brady Kelly11-Dec-12 16:36

Brady Kelly

11-Dec-12 16:36

No. The table is created by EF Code First, nothing but the table itself. Not even indexes but for the PK. I think it's something to do with EF trying to also save another child of the same parent, and clashing somewhere far away.

Re: No foreign keys on the first date.

Andrew Rissing13-Dec-12 6:42

Andrew Rissing

13-Dec-12 6:42

As a suggestion, you could debug into the code using the newly open sourced code - http://entityframework.codeplex.com/[^].

Re: No foreign keys on the first date.

ryan_b200917-Dec-12 6:55

ryan_b2009

17-Dec-12 6:55

with EF, it helps you out and takes care of all the FK IDs for you Smile | :)

You can fill the nested object and let it handle all the FKs (don't even set the ID properties)
ie:

parentObject.Project = newProject;
_projectRepositroy.Insert(parentObject);

Re: No foreign keys on the first date.

Brady Kelly17-Dec-12 7:04

Brady Kelly

17-Dec-12 7:04

EF should do that, but somewhere something is amiss - probably my fluent mappings - and I had to resort to the manual update you see in the code excerpt.

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