I am using the Cocktail framework in our application. I have created a Repository object to perform queries on an entity. For example, I have a simple query that fetches a single entity (uses WithIdAsync). This operation returns successfully. I then try to fetch another record via a navigation property of that entity. I have set the DefaultEntityReferenceStrategy to

 

new EntityReferenceStrategy(EntityReferenceLoadStrategy.Lazy, MergeStrategy.OverwriteChanges, false)

 

which basically tells DevForce to NOT use Async for navigation properties. The problem I'm running into is that any navigation properties fetched this way come back with an EntityState of Detached. Is this really supposed to be the case? Shouldn't any entities fetched via a navigation property come back as Unchanged?

 

Thanks

 

Robert

You might be getting the NullEntity.  http://drc.ideablade.com/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/null-entity - http://drc.ideablade.com/xwiki/bin/view/Documentation/null-entity

 

And no, the entity I'm getting back is not a NullEntity because all the fields are populated from the database as I would expect, it's just the EntityState is saying it's Detached.

 

Also, if I fetch my main entity using the Repository and put an Include on it, the related Entity comes back as expected (not a NullEntity) but it is still Detached. It doesn't appear to make any difference whether you get the related entity via an Include or reference it by lazy loading.

 

Ultimately, I want to change my application to fetch all navigational properties using Async also. Unfortunately, we have a lot of UI that is referencing a navigational property in the UI bindings via a path (i.e.     Entity.TaskSchedule.Name). TaskSchedule in this case is a navigational property. When fetched Async, TaskSchedule comes back as a PendingEntity and the binding will show Name as blank initially. I can't seem to get the UI to refresh properly when the PendingEntity is finally complete which is why I switched all the Navigation properties to fetch syncronously.

 

Do you have an example of how to use the Repositories to fetch navigational properties?

 

Thanks!

 

Read the last paragraph in my best practices blog post for advise on navigation properties.

 

http://cocktail.ideablade.com/best-practices-for-the-real-world/ - http://cocktail.ideablade.com/best-practices-for-the-real-world/