Question

I’m working on a project that is used to input information about a product into a document. One section has a form that can be filled out as many times as needed for a particular product. The information on this form is then available to be shared on multiple related documents. A typical many-to-many situation. The difference is, on the intermediate table, I want to store specific information for that form entry for that specific document.

Here are some table definitions to illustrate the point:

Document(   Id int identity(1,1),   Name nvarchar(256) )  Form(   Id int identity(1,1),   FormData nvarchar(max) )  DocumentForms(   DocumentId int,   FormId int,   DocumentFormNumber varchar(64) ) 

And some classes:

public class Document{   public int Id { get; protected set; }   protected IList<Form> Forms { get; set; } }  public class Form {   public int Id { get; protected set; }   public string DocumentFormNumber { get; set; }   public string FormData { get; set; } } 

Is there a way to create a mapping that supports reading the additional data when reading forms as part of the many to many relationship with Document? Do I need to use a stored procedure when loading data with the many to many relationship? I still need to be able to load the Form objects without them being a part of a document, but once they are added to the document, I need them to have a number that is generated based on some simple rules. But that number is obviously document specific. So while the next document might use the same Form data, it needs a new number.

Any suggestions on how this can be achieved?

Answer 1

I found my answer in a blog post by Billy McCafferty here.