Many to many (join table) relationship with the same entity with codefirst or fluent API?

Question

I am developing with EF 4.3.1 CodeFirst. I have an Airport table as shown below:

 public class Airport
    {
        [Key]
        public int ID { get; set; }
        public string Name{ get; set; }
    }

What I need is a Route table with 2 FKs from the same Airport table like:

 public class Route
    {
        public int DepartureAirportID { get; set; }
        public int DestinationAirportID { get; set; }
        public virtual Airport DestinationAirport { get; set; }
        public virtual Airport DepartureAirport { get; set; }
    }

How can this be achieved?

Answer 1

This should do what you need...

public class Airport
{
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Route> DepartureRoutes { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Route> DestinationRoutes { get; set; }
}
public class Route
{
    public int DepartureAirportID { get; set; }
    public int DestinationAirportID { get; set; }
    public Airport DestinationAirport { get; set; }
    public Airport DepartureAirport { get; set; }
}

protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
    modelBuilder.Entity<Route>()
        .HasKey(i => new { i.DepartureAirportID, i.DestinationAirportID});

    modelBuilder.Entity<Route>()
        .HasRequired(i => i.DepartureAirport)
        .WithMany(u => u.DepartureRoutes)
        .HasForeignKey(i => i.DepartureAirportID)
        .WillCascadeOnDelete(false);

    modelBuilder.Entity<Route>()
        .HasRequired(i => i.DestinationAirport)
        .WithMany(u => u.DestinationRoutes)
        .HasForeignKey(i => i.DestinationAirportID)
        .WillCascadeOnDelete(false);
}

...this creates tables like...

CREATE TABLE [Airports] (
    [ID] [int] NOT NULL IDENTITY,
    [Name] [nvarchar](4000),
    CONSTRAINT [PK_Airports] PRIMARY KEY ([ID])
)
CREATE TABLE [Routes] (
    [DepartureAirportID] [int] NOT NULL,
    [DestinationAirportID] [int] NOT NULL,
    CONSTRAINT [PK_Routes] PRIMARY KEY ([DepartureAirportID], [DestinationAirportID])
)
CREATE INDEX [IX_DestinationAirportID] ON [Routes]([DestinationAirportID])
CREATE INDEX [IX_DepartureAirportID] ON [Routes]([DepartureAirportID])
ALTER TABLE [Routes] ADD CONSTRAINT [FK_Routes_Airports_DestinationAirportID] FOREIGN KEY ([DestinationAirportID]) REFERENCES [Airports] ([ID])
ALTER TABLE [Routes] ADD CONSTRAINT [FK_Routes_Airports_DepartureAirportID] FOREIGN KEY ([DepartureAirportID]) REFERENCES [Airports] ([ID])

...and you can use it like so...

using (var db = new MyDbContext())
{
    foreach (var routeid in Enumerable.Range(1, 100))
    {
        var departure = new Airport { Name = "departure" + routeid };
        db.Airports.Add(departure);
        var destination = new Airport { Name = "destination" + routeid };
        db.Airports.Add(destination);

        var route = new Route{ DepartureAirport = departure, DestinationAirport = destination };
        db.Routes.Add(route);
    }

    int recordsAffected = db.SaveChanges();

    foreach (var route in db.Routes)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("{0}, {1}, {2}, {3}", route.DepartureAirportID, route.DestinationAirportID, route.DepartureAirport.Name, route.DestinationAirport.Name);
    }
}

...hope this helps. Note: don't use virtual on required properties (as those are indexes - and for this type of mapping will only work like that, you'll get some error I think).
Also I always add the opposite relations but you can use WithMany() blank, should work too.

Answer 2

You should add an additional self-related property to your class Airport:

public class Airport
{
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name{ get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Airport> AirportRoutes { get; set; }
}

And override OnModelCreating method with the next Fluent API code:

protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder) 
{
        base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
        modelBuilder.Entity<Airport>().HasMany(x => x.AirportRoutes).WithMany().Map(
            x => 
               {
                   x.MapLeftKey("DepartureId");       // left key name
                   x.MapRightKey("DestinationId");    // right key name
                   x.ToTable("Routes");               // table name
               });
}

Hope this helps you.