Question

For example i have a Contact table that is related to Addresses. To communicate with database i use WCF Data Services. I have a form, where there are contact information with list of possible addresses on it. For now i create list of ‘Addresses to insert’ and insert Contact using (context is entity data context here):

context.AddToContact(contact);
context.SaveChanges();

After that i can get the inserted contact.ID and add it as a parent id to all addresses in List of Addresses:

cacheAddressList.ForEach(a =>
                        {
                            address.ContactID = contact.ID;
                            context.AddToAddress(address);
                        }
                        );
context.SaveChanges();

So i have to do 2 inserts.
I know that in Entity Framework i can add children to parent if i have navigation properties between them. In my case i DO have navigations, but such code doesnt work (contact hasnt been saved yet..):

 context.AddToContact(contact);
 cacheAddressList.ForEach(a =>
                            {
                                address.Contact = contact;
                            }
                            );
 context.SaveChanges();

Is it possible to insert all children and parents in one transaction here? Because if it is possible-i do not have to create all that lists of children to add after parent insert..

Answer 1

Here’s the code sample to do this:

context.AddToContact(contact);
cacheAddressList.ForEach(a => 
    {
        address.Contact = contact;
        context.SetLink(address, "Contact", contact);
    });

context.SaveChanges(SaveChangesOptions.Batch);

Hope this helps.
Thanks
Pratik