Question

I’m using a generic repository that exposes an IQueryable<T> like this:

public IQueryable<T> AllEntities
{
    get
    {
        return session.Query<T>();
    }
}

I can query like this:

var results =
    (from e in repository.AllEntities
     where e.SomeProperty == "some value"
     select e).ToList();

However, if T has a parent and grandparent entity and I want to load them eagerly, I have to do this:

var results =
    (from e in repository.AllEntities
     where e.SomeProperty == "some value"
     select e)
    .Fetch(x => x.Parent)
    .ThenFetch(x => x.Grandparent)
    .ToList();

This works, but .Fetch and .ThenFetch are both Linq2Nhibernate specific extension methods, which is causing two problems:

1. I have to include a using NHibernate.Linq; statement at the top of my file. However, at the point that I’m doing this query, it should be implementation agnostic.

2. When I try to unit test this, the .Fetch and .ThenFetch methods fail when executed against the IQueryable<T> that my mock repository provides.

How can I wrap these inside of my IRepository<T> interface, or inside of some generic extension methods?

Update:

So far all I’ve come up with is to add this to my repository interface:

IQueryable<T> EagerLoadParent<U>(IQueryable<T> query, 
    Expression<Func<T, U>> parentExpression);
IQueryable<T> EagerLoadParent<U, V>(IQueryable<T> query,
    Expression<Func<T, U>> parentExpression, 
    Expression<Func<U, V>> grandparentExpression);

… and this to my NHibernate repository implementation:

public IQueryable<T> EagerLoadParent<U>(IQueryable<T> query,
    Expression<Func<T, U>> parentExpression)
{
    return query
        .Fetch(parentExpression);
}

public IQueryable<T> EagerLoadParent<U, V>(IQueryable<T> query,
    Expression<Func<T, U>> parentExpression, 
    Expression<Func<U, V>> grandparentExpression)
{
    return query
        .Fetch(parentExpression)
        .ThenFetch(grandparentExpression);
}

The consumer of this API now does this:

var query =
    (from e in repository.AllEntities
     where e.SomeProperty == "some value"
     select e);
var results = repository
    .EagerLoadParent(query, e => e.Parent, p => p.Grandparent)
    .ToList();

But this lacks the nice extension method syntax I’d prefer. I’m looking for something closer to the .Fetch and .ThenFetch syntax.

Answer 1

After some investigation I think I have a recipe: simply follow closely NHibernate.Linq implementation in order to have your own implementation and avoid an explicit NHibernate.Linq dependency in your client code. You just need to reproduce very closely
NHibernate.Linq.EagerFetchingExtensionMethods class.

It takes an interface: IFetchRequest, a class FetchRequest implementing IFetchRequest and a static class EagerFetch implementing extension methods. This is a sort of clone of NHibernate.Linq.EagerFetchingExtensionMethods class.

Just define:

public interface IFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> : IOrderedQueryable<TQueried> {}

which mimics NHibernate.Linq.INhFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch>

then define an implementation:

public class FetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> : IFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> {

    #region IEnumerable<TQueried> Members

    public IEnumerator<TQueried> GetEnumerator(){
        return NhFetchRequest.GetEnumerator();
    }

    #endregion

    #region IEnumerable Members

    System.Collections.IEnumerator System.Collections.IEnumerable.GetEnumerator()
    {
        return NhFetchRequest.GetEnumerator();
    }

    #endregion

    #region IQueryable Members

    public Type ElementType {
        get { return NhFetchRequest.ElementType; }
    }

    public System.Linq.Expressions.Expression Expression {
        get { return NhFetchRequest.Expression; }
    }

    public IQueryProvider Provider {
        get { return NhFetchRequest.Provider; }
    }

    #endregion

    public FetchRequest(INhFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> nhFetchRequest){
        NhFetchRequest = nhFetchRequest;
    }

    public INhFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> NhFetchRequest { get; private set; }
}

This one simply holds a nHibernate implementation and forwards every method to that member.

Finally:

public static class EagerFetch {
/*
    replacing methods from NHibernate.Linq.EagerFetchingExtensionMethods
    private static INhFetchRequest<TOriginating, TRelated> CreateFluentFetchRequest<TOriginating, TRelated>(MethodInfo currentFetchMethod, IQueryable<TOriginating> query, LambdaExpression relatedObjectSelector);
    public static INhFetchRequest<TOriginating, TRelated> Fetch<TOriginating, TRelated>(this IQueryable<TOriginating> query, Expression<Func<TOriginating, TRelated>> relatedObjectSelector);
    public static INhFetchRequest<TOriginating, TRelated> FetchMany<TOriginating, TRelated>(this IQueryable<TOriginating> query, Expression<Func<TOriginating, IEnumerable<TRelated>>> relatedObjectSelector);
    public static INhFetchRequest<TQueried, TRelated> ThenFetch<TQueried, TFetch, TRelated>(this INhFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> query, Expression<Func<TFetch, TRelated>> relatedObjectSelector);
    public static INhFetchRequest<TQueried, TRelated> ThenFetchMany<TQueried, TFetch, TRelated>(this INhFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> query, Expression<Func<TFetch, IEnumerable<TRelated>>> relatedObjectSelector);
*/  
    public static IFetchRequest<TOriginating, TRelated> Fetch<TOriginating, TRelated>(this IQueryable<TOriginating> query, Expression<Func<TOriginating, TRelated>> relatedObjectSelector){
        var fetch = EagerFetchingExtensionMethods.Fetch(query, relatedObjectSelector);
        return new FetchRequest<TOriginating, TRelated>(fetch);
    }

    public static IFetchRequest<TOriginating, TRelated> FetchMany<TOriginating, TRelated>(this IQueryable<TOriginating> query, Expression<Func<TOriginating, IEnumerable<TRelated>>> relatedObjectSelector){
        var fecth = EagerFetchingExtensionMethods.FetchMany(query, relatedObjectSelector);
        return new FetchRequest<TOriginating, TRelated>(fecth);
    }

    public static IFetchRequest<TQueried, TRelated> ThenFetch<TQueried, TFetch, TRelated>(this IFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> query, Expression<Func<TFetch, TRelated>> relatedObjectSelector){
        var impl = query as FetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch>;
        var fetch = EagerFetchingExtensionMethods.ThenFetch(impl.NhFetchRequest, relatedObjectSelector);
        return new FetchRequest<TQueried, TRelated>(fetch);
    }

    public static IFetchRequest<TQueried, TRelated> ThenFetchMany<TQueried, TFetch, TRelated>(this IFetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch> query, Expression<Func<TFetch, IEnumerable<TRelated>>> relatedObjectSelector){
        var impl = query as FetchRequest<TQueried, TFetch>;
        var fetch = EagerFetchingExtensionMethods.ThenFetchMany(impl.NhFetchRequest, relatedObjectSelector);
        return new FetchRequest<TQueried, TRelated>(fetch);
    }
}