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DevForce Resource Center » Development guide » Additional techniques » POCO » Make your POCO query a first class citizen
Last modified on August 15, 2012 17:21
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Querying for POCO entities from your EntityManager is performed the same as with non-POCO entities, with the single exception that DevForce has not auto-generated an EntityQuery for these entities on the EntityManager class. There are several ways to add these queries to make your POCO query a first class citizen.
Create the query directly
Your first choice is to simply create the EntityQuery directly:
| C# | var baseQuery = new EntityQuery<State>("States", anEntityManager); var queryForstatesStartingWithA = query.Where(s => s.Abbrev.StartsWith("A"); |
| VB | Dim baseQuery = New EntityQuery(Of State)("States", anEntityManager) Dim queryForstatesStartingWithA = query.Where(Function(s) s.Abbrev.StartsWith("A") |
Remember that the EntitySet or query method name is passed to the EntityQuery constructor so that the appropriate service provider query method will be called to fulfill the query. Here "States" is the EntitySet name.
Create an extension method
The next choice is to create an extension method which adds a method returning the EntityQuery to your EntityManager class. Here we add an extension method named "States":
| C# | namespace DomainModel { public static class EmExtensions { public static EntityQuery<State>States(this EntityManager em) { return new EntityQuery<State>("States", em); } } } |
| VB | Namespace DomainModel Public Module EmExtensions <System.Runtime.CompilerServices.Extension> _ Public Function States(ByVal em As EntityManager) As EntityQuery(Of State) Return New EntityQuery(Of State)("States", em) End Function End Module End Namespace |
With this extension method you can now query for States with the following syntax:
| C# | var queryForstatesStartingWithA = anEntityManager.States().Where(s => s.Abbrev.StartsWith("A")); |
| VB | Dim queryForstatesStartingWithA = _ anEntityManager.States().Where(Function(s) s.Abbrev.StartsWith("A")) |
Note that because we're using an extension method you must include parentheses when referencing anEntityManager.States().
Extend your strongly typed EntityManager partial class
Another alternative to the above is to add a "States" EntityQuery property to your own custom partial class which extends your strongly-typed EntityManager. This makes querying for POCO objects syntactically identical to querying for non-POCO objects.
| C# | public partial class DomainModelEntityManager : IdeaBlade.EntityModel.EntityManager { public EntityQuery<State> States { get { return new EntityQuery<State>("State", this); } } } |
| VB | Partial Public Class DomainModelEntityManager Inherits IdeaBlade.EntityModel.EntityManager Public ReadOnly Property States() As EntityQuery(Of State) Get Return New EntityQuery(Of State)("State", Me) End Get End Property End Class |