Entity Framework 4.1 Code First Self-Referencing One-to-Many and Many-to-Many Associations

Question

I have a User that can have collection of users he likes...

Another user can have collection of users he likes....

If User A likes User B and if User B likes User A, then they get to hang out. I need to send each other their contact info. How do we represent such a model in Entity Framework Code First?

public class User
{
    public int UserId { get; set; }

    public int? UserLikeId { get; set; }
    public virtual UserLike UserLike { get; set; }
}

public class UserLike
{
    public int UserLikeId { get; set; }

    public int UserId { get; set; }
    public virtual User User { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<User> LikeUsers { get; set; }
}

Is this model correct? I can't get this to work.

I've tried another way but that doesn't work too...

I tried to add collection of user to user table.

For ex :

public virtual ICollection<User> userlike { get; set; }

public class User
{
    public int UserId { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<UserLike> UserLikes { get; set; }
}

public class UserLike
{
    public int UserLikeId { get; set; }

    public int UserId { get; set; }
    public virtual User User { get; set; }

    public int LikeUserId { get; set; }
    public virtual User LikeUser { get; set; }
}

I get this error when I try to add user and who they like:

Conflicting changes to the role 'UserLike_LikeUser_Target' of the relationship 'UserLike_LikeUser' have been detected.

What's the best way to represent such a model?

Answer 1

You don't really need a separate entity to describe the relationship, the object model below will do the trick:

public class User
{
    public int UserId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public int? ThisUserLikesId { get; set; }
    public virtual User ThisUserLikes { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<User> LikeThisUser { get; set; }
}

public class Context : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }

    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        modelBuilder.Entity<User>()
                    .HasOptional(u => u.ThisUserLikes)
                    .WithMany(u => u.LikeThisUser)
                    .HasForeignKey(u => u.ThisUserLikesId);
    }
}

Now let's say you have a UserId in your hand and want to find the other User who likes this user which this user also like him:

using (var context = new Context())
{
    // For a given user id = 1
    var friends = (from u in context.Users
                   where u.UserId == 1
                   from v in u.LikeThisUser
                   where v.UserId == u.ThisUserLikesId
                   select new 
                   { 
                       OurUser = u, 
                       HerFriend = v 
                   })
                   .SingleOrDefault();

    ExchangeContactInfo(friends.OurUser, friends.HerFriend);
}                

Update 1:

A self referencing many-to-many association will be mapped to database using a join table which require a different object model and fluent API altogether:

public class User
{
    public int UserId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<User> ThisUserLikes { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<User> UsersLikeThisUser { get; set; }
}

public class Context : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }

    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        modelBuilder.Entity<User>()
                    .HasMany(u => u.ThisUserLikes)
                    .WithMany(u => u.UsersLikeThisUser)
                    .Map(c => 
                    {
                        c.MapLeftKey("UserId");
                        c.MapRightKey("OtherUserId");
                        c.ToTable("UserLikes");
                    });
    }
}

Update 2:

As I explained in this post, a many-to-many association cannot have a payload (e.g EventId), and if that’s the case then we have to break it down to two one-to-many associations to an intervening class and I can see you’ve correctly created this class (UserLike) to represent the extra information attached to your self-referencing many-to-many association but the associations from this intermediate class are not correct as we need to define exactly 2 many-to-one association from UserLike to User like I showed in the following object model:

public class User
{        
    public int UserId { get; set; }
    public string Email { get; set; }       

    public virtual ICollection ThisUserLikes { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection UsersLikeThisUser { get; set; }
}       

public class UserLike
{
    public int UserLikeId { get; set; }
    public int LikerId { get; set; }
    public int LikeeId { get; set; }
    public int EventId { get; set; }

    public User Liker { get; set; }
    public User Likee { get; set; }
    public virtual Event Event { get; set; }
}

public class Event
{
    public int EventId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}  

public class Context : DbContext 
{
    public DbSet Users { get; set; } 
    public DbSet Events { get; set; }

    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        modelBuilder.Entity()
                    .HasMany(u => u.ThisUserLikes)
                    .WithRequired(ul => ul.Liker)
                    .HasForeignKey(ul => ul.LikerId);
        modelBuilder.Entity()                        
                    .HasMany(u => u.UsersLikeThisUser)
                    .WithRequired(ul => ul.Likee)
                    .HasForeignKey(ul => ul.LikeeId)
                    .WillCascadeOnDelete(false);
    }
}

Now you can use the following LINQ query to retrieve all the users who like each other:

using (var context = new Context())
{                
    var friends = (from u1 in context.Users
                   from likers in u1.UsersLikeThisUser
                   from u2 in u1.ThisUserLikes 
                   where u2.LikeeId == likers.LikerId
                   select new
                   {
                       OurUser = u1.UserId,
                       HerFriend = u2.LikeeId 
                   })
                   .ToList();
}

Hope this helps.