Entity Framework - Load collection of related data

Question

I'm using Entity Framework. I am trying to load relational data into an enumerable-property of an entity. The entities are not related in the database so Entity Framework doesn't know how to join them. Now I tried to write an extension method (for IQueryable) that joins two tables and loads and assigns the relational data to a specified property. Say we have an entity called Student:

public partial class Student
{
    public List<Book> Books { get; set; }
}

And an entity called Book

public partial class Book
{
   public int StudentId { get; set; }
}

Now I would like to load a Student with his assigned Books somehow like this:

[Pseudo]
context.Students.Include([setToJoin], [foreignKey], [key], [sourceCollection]) ;
=
context.Students.Include(context.Books, book => book.StudentId, student => student.Id, student.Books);

I really appreciate any help!

Answer 1

You can manually create an association in EF. Please check here for the steps on how to accomplish that.