How to create a “sub-resource” using OData without creating a collection property for it?

问题

I'm creating a Web API 2 using OData v4 to provide the following HTTP verbs for my models: GET, POST and PUT, which means that for each resource (model class) I can insert/update/retrieve data from the following URLs:

• /api/myResourceName
• /api/myResourceName/{id}

And for my sub-resources (the children models) I can do the same through the following URLs:

• /api/myResourceName/{id}/subresource
• /api/myResourceName/{id}/subresource/{subresourceId}

However, in order to have a sub-resource, I necessarily need to have an IEnumerable<MySubresourceModel> in the ResourceModel, but there are many cases in which I don't want it because it'll be visible through the "medatata url (/api/$metadata) as a collection but I don't allow these items to be created / updated / retrieved in the actions of the "resource model" itself.

Example:

In order to have the GET /api/people/10/addresses/5 action working, I must have:

The model:

public class PersonModel
{
    // Without this property the API even doesn't run
    public IEnumerable<AddressModel> Addresses { get; set; }
}

OData configuration:

modelConfiguration.AddEntity<PersonModel>("people");
modelConfiguration.AddEntity<AddressModel>("addresses");

The controller:

[ODataRoutePrefix("people/{personId}/addresses")]
public class PeopleAddressesController : ODataController
{
    [EnableQueryDefault]
    [ODataRoute("{id}")]
    public IHttpActionResult Get(int personId, int id)
    {
        // [...]
    }

    // [...]
}

But when I don't have the property Addresses in the PersonModel, an exception is thrown when the application starts:

System.InvalidOperationException: The path template 'people/{personId}/addresses' on the action 'Ge*' in controller 'PeopleAddresses' is not a valid OData path template. Found an unresolved path segment 'addresses' in the OData path template 'people/{personId}/addresses'.

The question is: How can I have sub-resources without having the collection property?

PS: I've already tried using OData Actions and Functions but that didn't work for me.

来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40343559/how-to-create-a-sub-resource-using-odata-without-creating-a-collection-propert