Getting data in Entity Framework

Question

I have an Entity Framework Model in my project:

In the past, I would use a LINQ statement to get the data about a book from both tables:

var books = (from book in db.Books
             join author in db.Authors on book.AuthorId equals author.AuthorId
             select new { book.Title, author.Name, book.Price }).ToList();

dataGridView1.DataSource = books;

As you can see, this code just joins the two tables on AuthorID and returns the results as a List.

But, now that I'm trying to use Entity Framework, I was wondering how to accomplish this same objective? I mean, since I have the relationship between the Book file and the Author file via AuthorId, isn't there a way I can just say "Give me the book data based on this model" and it will return a dataset comprised of data from both entities? I hope I'm not being obtuse, I just figured since there was an association described between the two entities, that I wouldn't have to do a join in a LINQ query to get the data. My thoughts are, the data should already be linked together, via the model and the described association. Does this make sense?

Answer 1

You could try this one:

var books = (from book in db.Books  
             select new { book.Title, book.Author.Name, book.Price }).ToList();

In other words, you can use te Navigation Properties, to do so.