C# Entity-Framework: How can I combine a .Find and .Include on a Model Object?

Question

I\'m doing the mvcmusicstore practice tutorial. I noticed something when creating the scaffold for the album manager (add delete edit).

I want to write code elegantl

Answer 1

Dennis' answer is using Include and SingleOrDefault. The latter goes round-tripping to database.

An alternative, is to use Find, in combination with Load, for explicit loading of related entities...

Below an MSDN example:

using (var context = new BloggingContext()) 
{ 
  var post = context.Posts.Find(2); 

  // Load the blog related to a given post 
  context.Entry(post).Reference(p => p.Blog).Load(); 

  // Load the blog related to a given post using a string  
  context.Entry(post).Reference("Blog").Load(); 

  var blog = context.Blogs.Find(1); 

  // Load the posts related to a given blog 
  context.Entry(blog).Collection(p => p.Posts).Load(); 

  // Load the posts related to a given blog  
  // using a string to specify the relationship 
  context.Entry(blog).Collection("Posts").Load(); 
}

Of course, Find returns immediately without making a request to the store, if that entity is already loaded by the context.