Repository pattern and Navigation properties

Question

I just want know best practice about writing repository methods. Problem is deciding to write repository in which context has no lazy loading. How do you naming your method if it is GetById but it is not clear that which the navigations included in entity.

So I am thinking to write method names like GetUserByIdIncludedPosts Or it is better to use lazy loading activated context ?

If I write included properties in method names so will be really annoying long method names for few navigation property.

Answer 1

I am using the following in my repository base class to allow retrieval of entities along with a user-specified list of dependencies/relations:

protected DbSet<T> Objects { get; private set; }
protected YourDatabaseContext Context { get; private set; }

public virtual T GetByID( int id, params string[] children )
{
    if( children == null || children.Length == 0 )
    {
        return Objects.SingleOrDefault( e => e.ID == id );
    }
    DbQuery<T> query = children.Aggregate<string, DbQuery<T>>( Objects, ( current, child ) => current.Include( child ) );
    return query.SingleOrDefault( e => e.ID == id );
}

The code uses EF4/CTP5 and therefore uses Db* classes, but is trivial to convert back to the normal EF4 classes (e.g. ObjectSet instead of DbSet).

This would be used like so:

var product = productsRepository.GetByID( 42, "Category", "Orders.OrderLines" );

which would fetch you a product with Category and Orders populated as well as all orders having their OrderLines eagerly loaded.