Question

I have a Customers table with a foreign reference to the Addresses table. It appears that AutoMapper is doing something to make EF think that my Address reference is a new record rather than updating the existing record.

This code updates the Address record correctly. It does not add a new one:

using (CSIntUnitOfWork uow = new CSIntUnitOfWork())
{
    CustomerRepository customerRepository = new CustomerRepository(uow, _resellerID);

    DataModels.Customer updateCustomer = customerRepository.GetByID(customer.CustomerID);

    updateCustomer.ResellerID = customer.ResellerID;
    updateCustomer.CustomerType = customer.CustomerType;
    updateCustomer.Password = customer.Password;
    updateCustomer.Comments = customer.Comments;

    updateCustomer.Address.ResellerID = customer.Address.ResellerID;
    updateCustomer.Address.AddressCode = customer.Address.AddressCode;
    updateCustomer.Address.AddressType = customer.Address.AddressType;
    updateCustomer.Address.CompanyName = customer.Address.CompanyName;
    updateCustomer.Address.LastName = customer.Address.LastName;
    updateCustomer.Address.FirstName = customer.Address.FirstName;

    uow.SaveChanges();
}

This code will always add a new Address record:

using (CSIntUnitOfWork uow = new CSIntUnitOfWork())
{
    CustomerRepository customerRepository = new CustomerRepository(uow, _resellerID);

    DataModels.Customer updateCustomer = customerRepository.GetByID(customer.CustomerID);

    Mapper.CreateMap<Customer, Customer>()
        .ForMember(dest => dest.CustomerID, opt => opt.Ignore());
    Mapper.Map(customer, updateCustomer);

    Mapper.CreateMap<Address, Address>()
        .ForMember(dest => dest.ID, opt => opt.Ignore());
    Mapper.Map(customer.Address, updateCustomer.Address);

    uow.SaveChanges();
}

Any ideas why this is happening?

Answer 1

I just figured it out.

AutoMapper is mapping ALL the fields in Customers, including the Address field. The following code works great:

using (CSIntUnitOfWork uow = new CSIntUnitOfWork())
{
    CustomerRepository customerRepository = new CustomerRepository(uow, _resellerID);

    DataModels.Customer updateCustomer = customerRepository.GetByID(customer.CustomerID);

    Mapper.CreateMap<Customer, Customer>()
        .ForMember(dest => dest.CustomerID, opt => opt.Ignore())
        .ForMember(dest => dest.Address, opt => opt.Ignore());  // <-- This was the problem!
    Mapper.Map(customer, updateCustomer);

    Mapper.CreateMap<Address, Address>()
        .ForMember(dest => dest.ID, opt => opt.Ignore());
    Mapper.Map(customer.Address, updateCustomer.Address);

    uow.SaveChanges();
}