Using the EntityView2<T> class

The EntityView2<T> is a class which is used to create in-memory views on an EntityCollection<T> object and allows you to filter and sort an in-memory EntityCollection<T> without actually touching the data inside the EntityCollection<T>. An EntityCollection<T> can have multiple EntityView2<T> objects, similar to the DataTable - DataView combination. This section describes how to use the EntityView2<T> class in various different scenarios.

EntityView2<T> and Linq to Objects

EntityView2<T> implements IEnumerable<T> which allows you to access its contents in foreach loops or for example in Linq to Object queries. This enables you to create specific views on a larger EntityCollection<T> which are used in different processing methods utilizing Linq to Objects over the views created. It can be preferable to use EntityView2<T> objects instead of a Linq to Objects query over the EntityCollection<T> object as views are kept in-sync with the underlying data, a linq query's results isn't.

DataBinding and EntityView2<T> instances

The EntityCollection<T> class doesn't bind directly to a bound control, it always binds through its EntityView2<T> object (returned by the property DefaultView, see below). The EntityView2<T> approach allows you to create multiple EntityView2<T> instances on a single EntityCollection<T> and all bind them to different controls as if they're different sets of data.

Creating an EntityView2<T> instance

Creating an EntityView2<T> object is straightforward:

C#VB.NET

EntityCollection<CustomerEntity> customers = new EntityCollection<CustomerEntity>();
using(DataAccessAdapter adapter = new DataAccessAdapter())
{
    adapter.FetchEntityCollection(customers, null); // fetch all customers
}
EntityView2<CustomerEntity> customerView = new EntityView2<CustomerEntity>(customers);

Dim customers As New EntityCollection(Of CustomerEntity)()
Using adapter As New DataAccessAdapter()
    adapter.FetchEntityCollection(customers, Nothing) ' fetch all customers
End Using
Dim customerView As New EntityView2(Of CustomerEntity)(customers)

This creates an EntityView2<T> object on the EntityCollection<T> customers, so it lets you view the data in the EntityCollection<T> 'customers'. EntityView2<T> objects don't contain any data: all data you'll be able to access through an EntityView2<T> is actually data residing in the related EntityCollection<T>.

You can also use the EntityCollection<T>'s DefaultView property to create an EntityView2<T>. This is similar to the DataTable's DefaultView property: every time you read the property, you'll get the same view object back. This is also true for the EntityCollection<T>'s DefaultView property.

The DefaultView property calls the virtual method CreateDefaultEntityView() which you can override to customize the EntityView2<T> instance created for 'DefaultView'.

Instead of using the EntityView2<T> class, you can use the IEntityView2 interface, if you for example don't know the generic type. The EntityView2<T> constructor has various overloads which let you specify an initial filter and / or sort expression. You can also set the filter and / or sort expression later on as described below.

Filtering and sorting an EntityView2<T>

The purpose of an EntityView2<T> is to give you a 'view' based on a filter and / or a sort-expression on an in-memory EntityCollection<T>. Which entities from the related EntityCollection<T> is available to you through a particular EntityView2<T> object depends on the filter used for the EntityView2<T>. In which order the entities are available to you is controlled by the used sort expression. As the related EntityCollection<T> is not touched, you can have as many EntityView2<T> objects on the same EntityCollection<T>, all exposing different subsets of the data in the EntityCollection<T>, in different order.

Filtering and sorting an EntityView2<T> is done through normal LLBLGen Pro predicate and sort-clause classes. See for more information about predicate classes: Getting started with filtering and The predicate system.

The following example filters the aforementioned customers collection on all customers from the UK:

customerView.Filter = (CustomerFields.Country == "UK");

You could also have specified this filter with the EntityView2<T> constructor. As soon as the EntityView2<T>'s Filter property is set to a value, the EntityView2<T> object resets itself and will apply the new filter to the related EntityCollection<T> and all matching entity objects will be available through the EntityView2<T> object.

The EntityView2<T>'s sorter uses the same system. Let's sort our filtered EntityView2<T> on 'CompanyName', ascending. For more information about sort-clauses and sortexpression objects, please see: Generated code - Sorting.

customerView.Sorter = new SortExpression(CustomerFields.CompanyName.Ascending());

Use a Predicate<T> or Lambda expression for a filter

EntityView2<T> has a couple of constructors which accept a lambda expression or Predicate<T> object as a filter instead of an LLBLGen Pro predicate object. The example below filters the passed in collection of CustomerEntity instances on the Country property:

var customersFromGermany = 
        new EntityView2<CustomerEntity>(customers, c=>c.Country=="Germany");

Using DelegatePredicate<T>, a developer can also use a Predicate<T> delegate or Lambda expression to filter the EntityView2<T> instance after it's been created:

var customersFromGermany = 
            new EntityView2<CustomerEntity>(customers); 
customersFromGermany.Filter = new DelegatePredicate<CustomerEntity>(c=>c.Country=="Germany");

Multi-clause sorting

The EntityView2<T> allows you to sort the data using a SortExpression which makes sorting on multiple fields at once possible. The following example sorts customerView on City ascending and on CompanyName descending:

ISortExpression sorter = new SortExpression(CustomerFields.City.Ascending());
sorter.Add(CustomerFields.CompanyName.Descending());
customerView.Sorter = sorter;

If you want to sort on a property which isn't related to an entity field, you've to use the class EntityProperty instead of an entity field. So if you instead of sorting on CompanyName, want to sort on the entity property IsDirty, to get all the changed entities first, and then the non-changed entities, you've to use this code instead:

ISortExpression sorter = new SortExpression(CustomerFields.City.Ascending());
sorter.Add(new EntityProperty("IsDirty").Ascending());
customerView.Sorter = sorter;

EntityProperty is usable in any construct which works with an entity field, as long as it's in-memory sorting or filtering. Below you'll learn how to filter an EntityView2<T>'s data using an entity property.

Filtering using multiple predicates

To filter the customers collection on all customers from the UK which entities have been changed, use the following code below. It also illustrates the usage of EntityProperty again: it filters on a property which isn't an entity field. Keep in mind that not all predicate classes are usable for in-memory filtering: please consult the section Generated code - The predicate system which classes are usable.

var filter = new PredicateExpression(CustomerFields.Country.Equal("UK"));
filter.AddWithAnd(new EntityProperty("IsDirty").Equal(true));
customerView.Filter = filter;

View behavior on collection changes

When an entity changes in the related EntityCollection<T> of the EntityView2<T>, it can be the entity doesn't match the filter set for the view anymore and the EntityView2<T> therefore removes the entity from itself: it's no longer available to you through the EntityView2<T>.

As it might be desirable to control when and how this behavior is enforced by the EntityView2<T>, it's configurable by specifying a PostCollectionChangeAction value with the EntityView2<T> constructor or by setting the EntityView2<T>'s DataChangeAction property. The following list describes the various values and their result on the EntityView2<T>'s behavior:

NoAction (do nothing), i.e.: don't re-apply the filter nor the sorter.
ReapplyFilterAndSorter (default). Reapplies the filter and sorter on the collection.
ReapplySorter. Reapplies the sorter on the collection, not the filter.

By default, the EntityView2<T> will re-apply the filter and sorter. There's no setting for just the filter, as re-applying the filter could alter the set of entities in the view, which could change the order of the data as in: it's no longer ordered and has to be re-sorted. If the related collection fires a reset event (when it is sorted using its own code or cleared), the view is also reset and filters are re-applied as well as sorters.

If a new entity is added to the collection through code, it is not added to the view in NoAction mode or in ReapplySorter mode, because no filter is re-applied. If it's added through data-binding, it actually is added to the view, as it is added through the EntityView2<T>, because an EntityCollection<T> is bound to a bound control via an EntityView2<T>, either an EntityView2<T> object you created and bound directly or through the EntityView2<T> object returned by the EntityCollection<T>'s DefaultView property.

Projecting data inside an EntityView2<T> on another data-structure

A powerful feature of the EntityView2<T> class is the ability to project the data in the EntityView2<T> onto a new data-structure, like an EntityCollection<T>, DataTable or custom classes. Projections are a way to produce custom lists of data ('dynamic lists in memory') based on the current data in the EntityView2<T> and a collection of projection objects. Projection objects are small objects which specify which entity field or entity property should be used in the projection and where to get the value from.

For example, because the raw projection data can be used to re-instantiate new entities, the data can be used to produce a new EntityCollection<T> with new entities. How the data is projected depends on the projection engine used for the actual projection. For more information about projections please also see: Fetching DataReaders and projections.

Projections are performed by applying a set of projection objects onto an entity and then by passing on the result data array for further storage to a projection engine, or projector, the projected data is placed in a new instance of a class, for example an entity class, but this can also be a DataRow or a custom class.

The array is an array of type object. You can use filters during the projection as well, to limit the set of data you want to project from the EntityView2<T> data.

Projection objects: EntityPropertyProjector

A projection object is an instance of the EntityPropertyProjector class and it defines how to project a single entity field in an entity. An EntityPropertyProjector instance contains at most two IEntityFieldCore instances (e.g. a normal entity field objects or an EntityProperty object) and an optional Predicate, e.g. a FieldCompareValuePredicate, or a PredicateExpression.

The first IEntityFieldCore instance is mandatory. This is the default value to use for the projection. If a Predicate is specified, and it resolves to true, the default value (thus the first IEntityFieldCore) is used as value to use for the projection, otherwise the second IEntityFieldCore instance.

The EntityPropertyProjector also contains a Name property which is used to produce the name of the result field. The projection routine used is free to use this name for column purpose (e.g. during a projection onto a DataTable) but can also use it for entity field setting (projection onto an entity).

If a developer wants to execute a piece of code to manipulate the value to use for the projection, prior to storing it into the projected slot, the developer can derive his own class from EntityPropertyProjector and override ValuePostProcess(). This routine is normally empty and expects the value and the entity being processed.

Projecting an EntityView2<T>'s data is done by the CreateProjection method of an EntityView2<T> object. LLBLGen Pro comes with three different projection engines: one for projecting data onto a DataTable (the class DataProjectorToDataTable), one for projecting data onto an EntityCollection<T> (the class DataProjectorToEntityCollection) and one for projecting data onto a list of custom classes (the class DataProjectorToCustomClass).

You can write your own projection engine as well: implement the interface IEntityDataProjector to be able to use the engine in projections of EntityView2<T> data. If you also want to use the same engine in projections of result-sets as discussed in Fetching DataReaders and projections, you also should implement the similar interface IGeneralDataProjector. Because the interfaces can re-use the actual projection engine logic, it's easy to re-use projection code for both projection mechanisms.

Only the data which is available to you through the EntityView2<T> can be projected. You can't project nested data inside entities nor entity data not in the EntityView2<T>. In that case, create a new EntityView2<T> on the same EntityCollection<T> using a different filter and project that EntityView2<T> object instead.

Creating EntityPropertyProjector instances for all entity fields.

Sometimes you want to project all fields of a given entity and to avoid creating a lot of EntityPropertyProjector objects if your entity has a lot of fields, you can use the shortcut method on EntityFields2: EntityFields2.ConvertToProjectors(EntityFieldsFactory.CreateEntityFieldsObject(EntityType.entitynameEntity))

This method will return List of IEntityPropertyProjector objects, one for each entity field of the specified entity type. The classes are used in the examples below.

Examples of EntityView2<T> projections

Projection to DataTable.

C#VB.NET

var customers = new EntityCollection<CustomerEntity>();
adapter.FetchEntityCollection(customers, null); // fetch all customers
// create a view of all customers in germany
var customersInGermanyView = new EntityView2<CustomerEntity>( customers,
     (CustomerFields.Country == "Germany"), null );
// create projection of these customers of just the city and the customerid.
// for that, define 2 propertyprojectors, one for each field to project
var propertyProjectors= new List<IEntityPropertyProjector>();
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.City, "City"));
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.CustomerId, "CustomerID"));
DataTable projectionResults = new DataTable();
// create the actual projection.
customersInGermanyView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, projectionResults);

Dim customers As New EntityCollection(Of CustomerEntity)()
adapter.FetchEntityCollection(customers, nothing) ' fetch all customers
' create a view of all customers in germany
Dim customersInGermanyView As New EntityView2(Of CustomerEntity)( customers, _
    New FieldCompareValuePredicate(CustomerFields.Country, Nothing, ComparisonOperator.Equal, "Germany"), Nothing)
' create projection of these customers of just the city and the customerid.
' for that, define 2 propertyprojectors, one for each field to project
Dim propertyProjectors As New List(Of IEntityPropertyProjector)()
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.City, "City"))
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.CustomerId, "CustomerID"))
Dim projectionResults As New DataTable()
' create the actual projection.
customersInGermanyView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, projectionResults)

After this code, the DataTable projectionResults contains two columns, City and CustomerID, and it contains the data for the fields City and CustomerId of each entity in the EntityView2<T>, which are all entities with Country equal to "Germany".

Projection to EntityCollection

The following example performs a projection onto an EntityCollection. 'Clerk' is another subtype of 'Employee'.

C#VB.NET

// fetch all managers
var managers = new EntityCollection<ManagerEntity>();
adapter.FetchEntityCollection(managers, null);
// now project them onto 2 new clerk entities, by just projecting the employee fields 
var propertyProjectors = new List<IEntityPropertyProjector>();
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( EmployeeFields.Id, "Id" ) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( EmployeeFields.Name, "Name" ) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( EmployeeFields.StartDate, "StartDate" ) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( EmployeeFields.WorksForDepartmentId, "WorksForDepartmentId" ) );
var clerks = new EntityCollection<ClerkEntity>();
EntityView2<ManagerEntity> managersView = managers.DefaultView;
// project data to transform all managers into clerks. ;)
managersView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, clerks );

' fetch all managers
Dim managers As New EntityCollection(Of ManagerEntity)()
adapter.FetchEntityCollection(managers, Nothing)
' now project them onto 2 new clerk entities, by just projecting the employee fields 
Dim propertyProjectors As New List(Of IEntityPropertyProjector)()
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( EmployeeFields.Id, "Id" ) )
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( EmployeeFields.Name, "Name" ) )
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( EmployeeFields.StartDate, "StartDate" ) )
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( EmployeeFields.WorksForDepartmentId, "WorksForDepartmentId" ) )
Dim clerks As New EntityCollection(Of ClerkEntity)()
Dim managersView As EntityView2(Of ManagerEntity) = managers.DefaultView
' project data to transform all managers into clerks. ;)
managersView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, clerks )

After the code above, the collection clerks contains ClerkEntity instances with only the EmployeeEntity fields (inherited by ClerkEntity from its base type EmployeeEntity, which is also the base type of ManagerEntity) filled with data.

Projection to custom classes

The code below uses the class TestCustomer which is given below the projection example code (in C#). The projection also shows how to project a property of an entity which isn't an entity field, namely IsDirty, using the EntityProperty class. In .NET 3.5 or higher, you can also use Linq to Objects to achieve the same goal. EntityView2<T> implements IEnumerable<T> and can be used as a sequence source in a linq query.

C#VB.NET

var customers = new EntityCollection<CustomerEntity>();
adapter.FetchEntityCollection(customers, null); // fetch all customers
EntityView2<CustomerEntity> allCustomersView = customers.DefaultView;

// projection to custom 'TestCustomer' classes
var customCustomers = new List<TestCustomer>();
var customClassProjector = 
    new DataProjectorToCustomClass<TestCustomer>( customCustomers );
var propertyProjectors = new List<IEntityPropertyProjector>();
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.CustomerId, "CustomerID" ) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.City, "City" ) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.CompanyName, "CompanyName" ) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.Country, "Country" ) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( new EntityProperty("IsDirty"), "IsDirty" ) );
// create the projection
allCustomersView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, customClassProjector );

//--------------------------------------
// Alternative linq to objects variant. 
var customCustomers = (from c in allCustomersView
             select new TestCustomer 
             { 
                CustomerID = c.CustomerId, City = c.City,
                CompanyName = c.CompanyName, Country = c.Country,
                IsDirty = c.Dirty
             }).ToList();

Dim customers As New EntityCollection(Of CustomerEntity)()
adapter.FetchEntityCollection(customers, Nothing)  ' fetch all customers
Dim allCustomersView As EntityView2(Of CustomerEntity) = customers.DefaultView

' projection to custom 'TestCustomer' classes
Dim customCustomers As New List(Of TestCustomer)()
Dim customClassProjector As New DataProjectorToCustomClass(Of TestCustomer)( customCustomers )
Dim propertyProjectors As New List(Of IEntityPropertyProjector)()
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.CustomerId, "CustomerID" ) )
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.City, "City" ) )
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.CompanyName, "CompanyName" ) )
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.Country, "Country" ) )
propertyProjectors.Add( New EntityPropertyProjector( new EntityProperty("IsDirty"), "IsDirty" ) )
' create the projection
allCustomersView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, customClassProjector )

'--------------------------------------
' Alternative linq to objects variant
var customCustomers = (From c In allCustomersView _
             Select New TestCustomer With _
             { 
                .CustomerID = c.CustomerId, .City = c.City, _
                .CompanyName = c.CompanyName, .Country = c.Country, _
                .IsDirty = c.Dirty _
             }).ToList()

The custom class, TestCustomer:

/// <summary>
/// Test class for projection of fetched entities onto custom classes using a custom projector.
/// </summary>
public class TestCustomer
{
    public TestCustomer()
    {
    }

    #region Class Property Declarations
    public string CustomerID { get; set;}
    public string City { get; set; }
    public string CompanyName { get; set;}
    public string Country { get; set;}
    public bool IsDirty { get; set; }
    #endregion  
}

Distinct projections.

It can be helpful to have distinct projections: no duplicate data exists in the projection results. Creating a distinct projection is simply passing false / False for allowDuplicates in the CreateProjection method.

The following example shows a couple of projection related aspects: it filters the entity view's data using a Like predicate prior to projecting data, so you can limit the data inside an EntityView2<T> used for the projection, and it shows an example how a predicate is used to choose between two values in an entity to determine the end result of projecting an entity. The example uses Northwind like most examples in this documentation. The code contains Assert statements, which are left to show you how many elements to expect at that point in the method.

var customers = new EntityCollection<CustomerEntity>();
adapter.FetchEntityCollection( customers, null );
var customersInGermanyView = 
        new EntityView2<CustomerEntity>( customers, (CustomerFields.Country == "Germany"), null );
Assert.AreEqual( 11, customersInGermanyView.Count );

// create straight forward projection of these customers of just the city and the customerid.
var propertyProjectors= new List<IEntityPropertyProjector>();
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.City, "City" ) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.CustomerId, "CustomerID" ) );
DataTable projection = new DataTable();
customersInGermanyView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, projection );
Assert.AreEqual( 11, projection.Rows.Count );

// do distinct filtering during the following projection. It projects ContactTitle and IsNew
propertyProjectors = new List<IEntityPropertyProjector>();
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.ContactTitle, "Contact title" ) );
// any entity property can be used for projection source.
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( new EntityProperty( "IsNew" ), "Is new" ) );
projection = new DataTable();
customersInGermanyView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, projection, false );
Assert.AreEqual( 7, projection.Rows.Count );

// do distinct filtering and filter the set to project. Re-use previous property projectors. 
// 3 rows match the specified filter, distinct filtering makes it 2.
projection = new DataTable();
customersInGermanyView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, projection, false, (CustomerFields.ContactTitle % "Marketing%") );
Assert.AreEqual( 2, projection.Rows.Count );

// use alternative projection source based on filter.
projection = new DataTable();
propertyProjectors = new List<IEntityPropertyProjector>();
// bogus data, but performs what we need: for all contacttitles not matching the filter, CustomerId is used.
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.ContactTitle, 
        "Contact title", (CustomerFields.ContactTitle % "Marketing%"), CustomerFields.CustomerId) );
propertyProjectors.Add( new EntityPropertyProjector( CustomerFields.CustomerId, "CustomerID" ) );
// create a new projection, with distinct filtering, which gives different results now, because ContactTitle is now sometimes equal to CustomerId
customersInGermanyView.CreateProjection( propertyProjectors, projection, false );
Assert.AreEqual( 11, projection.Rows.Count );
foreach( DataRow row in projection.Rows )
{
    if( !row["Contact title"].ToString().StartsWith( "Marketing" ) )
    {
        Assert.AreEqual( row["Contact title"], row["CustomerID"] );
    }
}

Aggregates aren't supported in in-memory projections though Expressions are. All expressions are fully evaluated, where '+' operators on strings result in string concatenations. The DbFunctionCall class to call database functions inside an Expression object is ignored during expression evaluation.