Question

I’ve been beating around on this thing all day and it’s driving me nuts!

What I’m trying to do:

I have 2 tables: Questions / Answers

The questions table consists of: quesID, quesDescr
The answers table consists of: answerID, quesID, answer

Basically, the answers table are the options for each question. For example:

quesID | quesDescr

1 | What is your favorite color?

answerID | quesID | answer

1 | 1 | Red

2 | 1 | Blue

etc…

On my form page I want to grab the questions and all their answer choices to display to the end user. It seems I can get the questions to list but I can’t get both the questions and answers to post on my View.

I thought I would handle the query (linq to sql) in my model… but this doesn’t give me the answers:

public List<nonEEPreQue> getPreQuestions()
        {
            return fDB.nonEEPreQues.OrderBy(q => q.preQuesOrder).ToList();
        }

I read some things here and across that web that use outer joins. I think this might be correct, but I’m struggling with how to pass the variable. I tried this in the Model, but it seems it goes into the controller(?):

var quesList = from ques in preQ.nonEEPreQues
                       join an in preQ.nonEEPreQuesAnswers
                        on ques.preQuesID equals an.preQuesID into outer
                       from an in outer.DefaultIfEmpty()
                       select new
                       {
                           QuestionTxt = ques.preQuesDescr,
                            AnswerTxt = an.answerTxt
                       };


        return View(quesList);

So – is the above correct? What do I do then in my view to access both question and answers (I assume in a foreach loop)?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Since you’re already using Linq to SQL and using an anonymous type, keep it simple and select what you need in a relational manner.

var quesList = from ques in preQ.nonEEPreQues
               select new
               {
                   QuestionID = ques.preQuesID,
                   QuestionTxt = ques.preQuesDescr,
                   Answers = (from  an in preQ.nonEEPreQuesAnswers
                              where an.preQuesID == ques.preQuesID
                              select an)
               };

This will give you an object that has QuestionTxt and QuestionID for the questions and a collection of nonEEPreQuesAnswer objects that are attached to question directly. This will make enumerating them easier, and it should be bindable as well (if you were doing a gridview or repeater).