Question

Let’s say I have two tables, A and B with a many-to-many relationship using the connecting table AB.

Table A

AID int

Table B

BID int

Table AB

AID int
BID int

My task is to find all the rows in AB where AB.AID = 2 using linq to entity framework 4.

Part of the problem is that the AB table is not included in the entities model. Only A and B are included with a many-to-many relationship. But since I don’t need the information from B, it would be a waste to involve a many-to-many join for this task.

This is trivial using SQL but I don’t see how to do it using linq to Entity Framework.

Answer 1

In my experience, the best way around this issue is to add a primary key to the AB table such as ABID so that it does appear in your context.

That way your query would look something like this:

var q = from ab in context.AB
        where ab.BID == 2
        select ab;

I understand this solution is not completely ideal, but it should work.