Error while trying to cascade-delete

Question

I'm getting the following error message while trying to delete an item from the db:

The operation failed: The relationship could not be changed because one or more of the foreign-key properties is non-nullable. When a change is made to a relationship, the related foreign-key property is set to a null value. If the foreign-key does not support null values, a new relationship must be defined, the foreign-key property must be assigned another non-null value, or the unrelated object must be deleted.

I've read many topics about this issue, but none of them seem to help (or maybe i didn't understand them very well).

my models are:

public class ARDOperation
    {    
        [Key]                
        public int ARD { get; set; }

        [Required]               
        public virtual ICollection<Act> Actions { get; set; }

        public ARDOperation()
        {
            this.Actions = new List<Act>();
        }

    }
public class Act
{                      
    [Key]
    [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
    public int ARDID { get; set; }
    public int ARDOperationId { get; set; }

    [ForeignKey("ARDOperationId")]        
    public virtual ARDOperation ARDOperation { get; set; }

    public string Data { get; set; }

    [EnumDataType(typeof(ARDState))]
    public ARDState State { get; set; }
}

I Also defined a fluent API:

    public class ARDOperationDBContext : DbContext
    {            
        public DbSet<ARDOperation> ARDOperation { get; set; }
        //public DbSet<Act> Act { get; set; }

        protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
        {
            modelBuilder.Entity<Act>()
            .HasRequired(t => t.ARDOperation)
            .WithMany(t => t.Actions)
            .HasForeignKey(d => d.ARDOperationId)
            .WillCascadeOnDelete(true);                

            //modelBuilder.Entity<ARDOperation>()

        }

The method in controller:

        internal void RemoveAction(int ARDID)
        {
        var op = ARDOperationDB.ARDOperation.Find(ARDID);
        if (op != null)
        {
            //will not remove the "idle" action
            if (op.Actions.Count > 1)                                
            {
                Act act = op.Actions.ElementAt(1);                                        
                op.Actions.Remove(act);                    
                //ARDOperationDB.Entry(op).State = EntityState.Modified;
                ARDOperationDB.SaveChanges();                                                           
            }                
        }
    }

I've tried to define the "ARDOperationId" property as nullable (int?) using code-first approach and i'm not getting any errors this way, but the child's data still remain in the DB.

I think that i'm missing something related to the access to the Act model.

Will appreciate any help, Yuval.

Answer 1

Take a look at [this answer][1] from an EF guru about the remove method.

EntityCollection.Remove(childEntity) marks the relationship between parent and childEntity as Deleted. If the childEntity itself is deleted from the database and what exactly happens when you call SaveChanges depends on the kind of relationship between the two:

If the relationship is optional, ie the foreign key that refers from the child to the parent in the database allows NULL values, this foreign will be set to null and if you call SaveChanges this NULL value for the childEntity will be written to the database (ie the relationship between the two is removed). This happens with a SQL UPDATE statement. No DELETE statement occurs.

If the relationship is required (the FK doesn't allow NULL values) and the relationship is not identifying (which means that the foreign key is not part of the child's (composite) primary key) you have to either add the child to another parent or you have to explicitly delete the child (with DeleteObject then). If you don't do any of these a referential constraint is violated and EF will throw an exception when you call SaveChanges - the infamous "The relationship could not be changed because one or more of the foreign-key properties is non-nullable" exception or similar.

If the relationship is identifying (it's necessarily required then because any part of the primary key cannot be NULL) EF will mark the childEntity as Deleted as well. If you call SaveChanges a SQL DELETE statement will be sent to the database. If no other referential constraints in the database are violated the entity will be deleted, otherwise an exception is thrown.

[1]: Entity Framework .Remove() vs. .DeleteObject()

Answer 2

So i read a bunch of articles on this subject. Chris's response here was really good and helpful for my understanding: Link

But what really helped me was the small code example here: Solution .

The "[Key, ForeignKey("Order"), Column(Order = 1)]" part really did the trick.

Many Thanks!