Question

I am working on an ASP.NET MVC RC2 app using Entity Framework.

This is my Entity diagram.

In my repository I get the entity like this:

public Product GetProduct(int id) {     return (from c in _entities.ProductSet.Include('User')            where c.Id == id            select c).FirstOrDefault(); } 

My view:

<%@ Page Title='' Language='C#' MasterPageFile='~/Views/Shared/Site.Master' Inherits='System.Web.Mvc.ViewPage<SampleApp.Models.Product>' %> 

Edit product

<h2>Edit product</h2>  <%= Html.ValidationSummary('Edit was unsuccessful. Please correct the errors and try again.') %>  <% using (Html.BeginForm()) {%>      <fieldset>         <legend>Fields</legend>         <p>             <label for='Id'>Id:</label>             <%=  Model.Id %>         </p>         <p>             <label for='Title'>Title:</label>             <%= Html.TextBox('Title', Model.Title) %>             <%= Html.ValidationMessage('Title', '*') %>         </p>         <p>             <label for='Body'>Body:</label>             <%= Html.TextBox('Body', Model.Body) %>             <%= Html.ValidationMessage('Body', '*') %>         </p>         <p>             <input type='submit' value='Save' />         </p>     </fieldset>  <% } %>  <div>     <%=Html.ActionLink('Back to List', 'Index') %> </div> 

Problem and my question is: When the ‘Product’ entity is returned from the view on post, the linked entity ‘User’ is null. Why is that and is there any way to get around this?

Answer 1

Because the productToEdit is a new product object populated from the form fields and if you don’t have fields for the user how would you populate the User entity

For a ‘workaround’, first get the product from the db, edit this with the edited fields in the productToEdit and save to db