EF code first child collection not populating

Question

I've been banging my head against this for a long time and all of the Googling in the world isn't helping. I know it's got to be something simple.

Models:

public class List { [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)] public Guid Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public string Description { get; set; } public virtual IList<ListItem> ListItems { get; set; } } public class ListItem { [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)] public Guid Id { get; set; } public string Name { get; set; } public string Description { get; set; } public bool IsComplete { get; set; } }

When I set:

Configuration.ProxyCreationEnabled = false;

Then the following is null:

context.Lists.First().ListItems.ToList();

When I set:

Configuration.ProxyCreationEnabled = true;

I get the following exception:

Error getting value from 'ListItems' on 'System.Data.Entity.DynamicProxies.List_5C17C9086854159E373744C770F3DDB07BBE4E3E23C2BD0E6B0C5DE3E13E63AD'

I'm not sure how to proceed. How can I access the ListItems through the List?

stackoverflow.com/questions/23095393/… <-- has the context been disposed? — jjj
– jjj, Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 8:16
You know what, it might be. I'll look into this when I get home tonight and report back. Thanks! — ThisGuyKnowsCode
– ThisGuyKnowsCode, Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 13:17
This was all within the using() block, so I wasn't disposed yet. — ThisGuyKnowsCode
– ThisGuyKnowsCode, Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 1:40

Vojtěch Dohnal · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-10 10:00:09Z

context.Lists.First().ListItems.ToList();

let us analyze this for a bit: you want to get the first List in the database, which returns a List object. For the object to be referencable, EF has to materialize the value, so it executes the query for context.Lists.First(); You may see the problem right here: because the property ListItems is a navigation property, it doesn't get fetched from the database, therefore it is null (if it doesnt get loaded due to eager loading, explicit loading).

You have to tell EF you also want the navigation property to be populated, using the Include() function, like:

context.Lists.Include(x=>x.ListItems).First().ListItems.ToList();

Note that the first() call will fail if there is no entry in the Lists database table, so consider the following approach:

var List=context.Lists.Include(x=>x.ListItems).FirstOrDefault(); var ListItems=List==null?null:List.ListItems.ToList();

ThisGuyKnowsCode · Accepted Answer · 2015-08-12 01:42:10Z

I added the following attribute to the model that was being a pain:

[DataContract(IsReference = true)]

That, along with using context.List.Include(x => x.ListItems), and I'm all set. Thank you!

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