EF Code First: Many-to-many and one-to-many

Question

This is probably just because my knowledge with the EF Code First fluent API is lacking, but I'm stumped.

I want to model the following:

• A Groups collection with Id and Name
• A Users collection with Id and Name
• Each user is assigned to exactly one primary group
• Each user may have zero or many secondary groups

The table structure I'm going for would look like:

Groups

• Id
• Name

Users

• Id
• Name
• PrimaryGroupId

SecondaryGroupAssignments

• UserId
• GroupId

I've been beating my head against a wall trying to model this with EF Code First, but I can't get it to accept both relationships between User and Group. Sorry for not posting any .NET code (I'm happy to), but it's probably all wrong anyway.

Is there a way to make EF model this? I'm assuming I have to do some sort of configuration with the Fluent API. Maybe a better question is: is there any good, definitive reference for the Fluent API?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Try this (untested):

public class Group 
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<User> PrimaryUsers { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<User> SecondaryUsers { get; set; } 
}

public class User
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int PrimaryGroupId { get; set; }

    public virtual Group PrimaryGroup { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<Group> SecondaryGroups { get; set; }
}

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

    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);

        modelBuilder.Entity<User>()
                    .HasRequired(u => u.PrimaryGroup)
                    .WithMany(g => g.PrimaryUsers)
                    .HasForeignKey(u => u.PrimaryGroupId)
                    .WillCascadeOnDelete(false);

        modelBuilder.Entity<User>()
                    .HasMany(u => u.SecondaryGroups)
                    .WithMany(g => g.SecondaryUsers)
                    .Map(m => m.MapLeftKey("UserId")
                               .MapRightKey("GroupId")
                               .ToTable("SecondaryGroupAssignments"));
    }
}

Answer 2

Based on Ladislav's excellent answer, here's how to do it without using any mappings - just attributes applied to the Model classes themselves:

public class Group 
{
    public int Id { get; set; }

    [MaxLength(300)]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public ICollection<User> Users { get; set; }
}

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

    [MaxLength(300)]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [ForeignKey("PrimaryGroup")]
    public int PrimaryGroupId { get; set; }
    [Required]
    public Group PrimaryGroup { get; set; }

    [InverseProperty("Users")]
    public ICollection<Group> SecondaryGroups { get; set; }
}

Notes

If you want, you can add the virtual keyword to the 2 ICollections and the Group. This allows lazy-loading. Performance-wise, I don't recommend it, but it is possible.

I included MaxLength attributes with an arbitrary (but safe) length of 300, because putting strings out in EF without a MaxLength gets you low-performance NVarChar(MAX) columns. Totally irrelevant to what's being asked but better to post good code.

I recommend against class names "User" and "Group" for your EF classes. They're going to complicate any SQL you attempt to run later, having to type [User] and [Group] to access them, and complicate using these classes in MVC Controllers where your class User will conflict with the Context property User that gives you access to the Asp.Net Identity library.