How to to make entity relationships in WEB API database? - angularjs

Question

I'm making a task management tool using AngularJS for the frontend and ASP.NET WEB API 2 for the backend. I have two entities in the database, a "Task" and a "Type". Each task has one type associated. The user fills a form when he can create a new task, and he has to select a type for that task.
Here's the C# code:
// KBTM_Task.cs file
public class KBTM_Task
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string TaskID { get; set; } // User defined ID
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
}
// KBTM_Type.cs file
public class KBTM_Type
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
}
So my question is: how do I "connect" the two in the database? What I mean is, let's say I want to POST data to the database. I have to make two POSTs, right? One for the Task and one for the Type, since they're two separate entities.
But since they're stored with two different IDs, how do I know that a certain task has a certain type? In other words, if I send a GET request to KBTM_Task, how do I get the type of that task?

Answer 1

Modify your KBTM_Task entity to include the Type Id and foreign key relationship
public class KBTM_Task
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string TaskID { get; set; } // User defined ID
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public int TypeID { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("TypeID")]
public virtual KBTM_Type Type { get; set; }
}
This way when you get the data from the API your task object will already include the key ("TypeID") that can be updated and related object ("Type") that you can access its properties (Name, Description, ...).
When you update TypeID on the client object (model) you can simply push the updated task object to the API using $http.put() to handle the database update.

Answer 2

1) Add foreign key using fluent api (or data annotation)
// KBTM_Task.cs file
public class KBTM_Task
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string TaskID { get; set; } // User defined ID
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public int KBTM_TypeID {get;set}
public virtual KBTM_Type {get; set}
}
// KBTM_Type.cs file
public class KBTM_Type
{
public int ID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public KBTM_Task KBTM_Task { get; set;}
}
Add the following in the class inheriting from DbContext
public class KbtmContext : DbContext
{
...
//public virtual DbSet<KBTM_Task> KbtmTasks {get; set;}
...
protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
// Configure KBTM_TypeID as FK for KBTM_Task
modelBuilder.Entity<KBTM_Task>()
.HasRequired(k => k.KBTM_Type)
.WithRequiredPrincipal(ad => ad.KBTM_Task);
}
}
2) If exposing the entity class in API response or request then you need to exclude navigation property from being serialized.
// KBTM_Task.cs file
public class KBTM_Task
{
...
[JsonIgnore]
public virtual KBTM_Type Type { get; set; }
}
To use the [JsonIgnore] atttribute use Install-Package Newtonsoft.Json in package manager console.(One of the popular solutions to manage serialization)