Entity Framework HierarchyId Workarounds

Question

EF 5.0

I am working on a prototype to test hierarchyid and entity framework together. I have the following schema:

Create Table dbo.Employee
(
   Emp         


        

Answer 1

EF6 is now open source, so it is easy to add HierarcyID support. I have added it, too. You can download the modifed source and the complied/signed dlls from codeplex: http://entityframework.codeplex.com/SourceControl/network/forks/zgabi/efhierarchyidrc1 (sometimes the fork name changes) Or from NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/EntityFrameworkWithHierarchyId/ Currenty EF6 is in RC1 state, but I'll merge the modifications to every later releases of EF6.

I have the following model:

public class Employee
{
    public int EmployeeId { get; set; }
    [Required, MaxLength(100)]
    public string Name { get; set; }
    [Required]
    public HierarchyId Node { get; set; }

    public IQueryable GetSubordinates(MyContext context)
    {
        return context.Employees.Where(o => Node == o.Node.GetAncestor(1));
    }
}

public class MyContextInitializer : CreateDatabaseIfNotExists
{
    protected override void Seed(MyContext context)
    {
        context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(
            "ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Employees] ADD [ManagerNode] AS ([Node].[GetAncestor]((1))) PERSISTED");
        context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(
            "ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Employees] ADD CONSTRAINT [UK_EmployeeNode] UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED (Node)");
        context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(
            "ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Employees]  WITH CHECK ADD CONSTRAINT [EmployeeManagerNodeNodeFK] " +
            "FOREIGN KEY([ManagerNode]) REFERENCES [dbo].[Employees] ([Node])");
        context.Employees.Add(new Employee { Name = "Root", Node = new HierarchyId("/") });
        context.Employees.Add(new Employee { Name = "Emp1", Node = new HierarchyId("/1/") });
        context.Employees.Add(new Employee { Name = "Emp2", Node = new HierarchyId("/2/") });
        context.Employees.Add(new Employee { Name = "Emp3", Node = new HierarchyId("/1/1/") });
        context.Employees.Add(new Employee { Name = "Emp4", Node = new HierarchyId("/1/1/1/") });
        context.Employees.Add(new Employee { Name = "Emp5", Node = new HierarchyId("/2/1/") });
        context.Employees.Add(new Employee { Name = "Emp6", Node = new HierarchyId("/1/2/") });
    }
}

public class MyContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet Employees { get; set; }
}

Generated database:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Employees](
    [EmployeeId] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [Name] [nvarchar](100) NOT NULL,
    [Node] [hierarchyid] NOT NULL,
    [ManagerNode]  AS ([Node].[GetAncestor]((1))) PERSISTED,
 CONSTRAINT [PK_dbo.Employees] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [EmployeeId] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY],
 CONSTRAINT [UK_EmployeeNode] UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED 
(
    [Node] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS = ON) ON [PRIMARY]
) ON [PRIMARY]

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Employees]  WITH CHECK ADD  CONSTRAINT [EmployeeManagerNodeNodeFK] FOREIGN KEY([ManagerNode])
REFERENCES [dbo].[Employees] ([Node])

Example to get the child nodes of Emp1 employee:

    using (var c = new MyContext())
    {
        var firstItem = c.Employees.Single(o => o.Node == new HierarchyId("/1/"));

        foreach (var table1 in firstItem.GetSubordinates(c))
        {
            Console.WriteLine(table1.EmployeeId + " " + table1.Name);
        }
    }

result:

4 Emp3
7 Emp6