How Model n--n relationship in EF Code First to automatically generated views work correctly?

Question

I use EF Code First and have a problem in n-n relationship, assume we have a singer that sing in some genres, so we need this models: Artist, Genre, and ArtistsGenres, I def

Answer 1

The problem is you are not explicitly loadin the Genres collection of the artist class and you do not allow EF to intercept that property access by not declaring it as virtual.

public class Artist
{
    public long Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection Genres { get; set; }
}

Then when you need to access artist and the related genres you need to eager load them

var artist = db.Artists.Include(a => a.Genres)
      .Where(a => a.Name == "Foo").SingleOrDefault()

Making the Genres property virtual will allow EF to lazy load the collection if you didn't eager load it.