I've been working on a project utilizing EF5, Vb.net, AJAX (Javascript), ASMX-Webservices and HTML.
Here's my query concerning classes:
Public Class Company
Public Property CompanyId As Integer
Public Property Name As String
Public Overridable Property Companytype As Companytype
End Class
and the Class:
Public Class Companytype
Public Property CompanytypeId As Integer
Public Property Name As String
-> Public Overridable Property Companies As List(Of Company)
Do I really need the -> marked line in this scenario?
To better illustrate, here is how I currently retrieve all companies of a specific company type:
Public Shared Function PostCompanyTypeCompanies() As List(Of Company)
Dim db As New Context
Dim x As Integer = 1
Dim y = (From c In db.Companies Where c.CompanyType.CompanyTypeId = x Select New With _
{c.Name, _
c.CompanyType})
Dim z As List(Of Company) = y.AsEnumerable() _
.Select(Function(t) New Company With _
{.Name = t.Name, _
.CompanyType = t.CompanyType}).ToList()
Return z
End Function
In this case, 'x' is just an example variable and can be passed as parameter to the function. However, when dealing with lists, I always encounter circular references which hinder me from accessing the Companytypes for a new Company or even retrieving the companytype of a Company using "Company.Companytype.Name". When I omit the list property, everything functions smoothly since I can store the complete Companytype directly within the Company object. I attempted another approach by setting the Getter of the Child & Parent Properties to Protected, but that led to issues where I couldn't access the variable as mentioned earlier. Hence, the crucial question remains: Is the -> List Property obligatory for my requirement?
Your assistance is highly appreciated. Thank you.