Question

I’m somewhat new to EF and LINQ and everytime I get beyond the basics I start to confused on how to tackle more advanced queries.

In my example I’m trying to return a list of Channels associated with a user that includes a count of how many Reports that user has. I’ve got as far as the query below but I’m stuck on how to include the Reports count… any help would be greatly appreciated.

 var query = from c in _channelRepository.GetTable().Include("User")
                    where c.UserId == user.Id && c.IsActive == true
                    orderby c.Name
                    select c;

Answer 1

You can accomplish this by creating a new class (POCO) with all the properties you want.

for example

public class ChannelsWithCount
{
  public Channel Channel { get; set; }
  public User User { get; set; }
  public int? ReportsCount { get; set; }
}

var query = from c in _channelRepository.GetTable()
            where c.UserId == user.Id && c.IsActive == true
            orderby c.Name
            select new ChannelsWithCount
            {
               Channel = c,
               User = c.User,
               ReportsCount = c.User.Reports.Count(),
            }