Entity framework relations with identity

Question

I am working on a website using ASP and entity framework and identity.

I am actually facing a problem where an entity framework doesn't add entries into the database tables even doe I am adding classes to my model.

The actual problem I am facing just hits a specific subclass of the identity model which I declared as the following :

public partial class ApplicationUser : IdentityUser
{
           public virtual List<Friend> Friends { get; set; }
}

Where friends are declared as the following :

[Table("Friends")]
public class Friend
{
    [Key, Column(Order = 1)]
    public string AddingUser { get; set; }
    [Key, Column(Order = 2)]
    public string AddedUser { get; set; }

    public string Pseudo { get; set; }
    public DateTime FriendsSince { get; set; }
    public bool IsInvitation { get; set; }
    public bool IsAccepted { get; set; }
    public bool IsBloqued { get; set; }
    public int NumberOfUnreadenMessages { get; set; }

    public virtual List<Message> FriendShipMessages { get; set; }
    [ForeignKey("AddingUser")]
    public virtual ApplicationUser AddingFriend { get; set; }
    [ForeignKey("AddedUser")]
    public virtual ApplicationUser AddedFriend { get; set; }

    public Friend()
    {
        FriendShipMessages = new List<Message>();
    }

    public Friend(ApplicationUser AddingUser, ApplicationUser AddedUser)
    {
        AddedFriend = AddedUser;
        AddingFriend = AddingUser;
        this.AddingUser = AddingUser.Id;
        IsInvitation = false;
        IsAccepted = false;
        IsBloqued = false;
        FriendsSince = DateTime.Now;
        NumberOfUnreadenMessages = 0;
        FriendShipMessages = new List<Message>();
    }
}

I did add to the EF modelbuilder this rule to map the application user to the friends table:

// Mapping Friends And Bloqueds
modelBuilder.Entity<ApplicationUser>()
     .HasMany(c => c.Friends)
     .WithRequired(c => c.AddingFriend)
     .WillCascadeOnDelete(false);

In my controller part to add a user I am using the following code:

public string AddFriend(string AddedUserId)
{
    var AddedUser = UserManager.FindById(AddedUserId);
    var AddingUser = UserManager.FindById(User.Identity.GetUserId());
    AddingUser.Friends.Add(new Friend(AddingUser, AddedUser) { 
           IsInvitation = true });
    return "Friend was added successfully";
}

Where is the problem why is my controller not adding effectively the entry to the database knowing that during debugging sessions I do have the good entities going into the controller and it also effectively create the instance of the friend class correctly.

Thank you in advance for your response.

Answer 1

Changes to entity objects don't get persisted to a database until you actually tell your context to do it. My preferred method of this would be to use the context directly instead of the UserManager :

var addedUser = db.Users.Single(u => u.Id == addedUserId);
var addingUser = db.Users.Single(u => u.Id == User.Identity.GetUserId());

addingUser.Friends.Add(new Friend(addingUser, addedUser) 
{ 
    IsInvitation = true;
});

db.SaveChanges();

But this might work (I'm assuming UserManager calls db.SaveChanges internally) if you really want to use the UserManager :

var addedUser = UserManager.FindById(addedUserId);
var addingUser = UserManager.FindById(User.Identity.GetUserId());

addingUser.Friends.Add(new Friend(addingUser, addedUser) 
{ 
    IsInvitation = true;
});

UserManager.UpdateUser(addingUser);

Side note: I've also changed the casing of your parameters and variables to match with common convention. I highly recommend learning that way and sticking with it, particularly if you intend to work with other developers.