c# - How to update related entities in Entity Framework

Question

I have an MVC project and using Entity Framework Code First and POCO objects for the database. For example:

public class ClassA
{
  public int? Id {get; set;}
  public string Name { get; set;}
  public virtual ClassB B {get; set;}
}

public class ClassB
{
  public int? Id {get;set;}
  public string Description {get;set;}
}

I have an ActionResult that create or edit a model. The problem is when I call this ActionResult to update the model, and model.B has been changed, the relation is not saved in the database. When the ActionResult is called to create a new object it works as expected. How do I solve this?

public ActionResult Save(ClassA model)
{
  model.B = GetBFromDb(model.B.Id.Value);

  if(ModelState.IsValid)
  {
    if (id.HasValue)
    {
      context.Entry(model).State = System.Data.EntityState.Modified;
    }
    else
    {
      context.ClassAs.Add(model);
    }
    context.SaveChanges();
    // redirect to index etc.
  }
  return View("EditForm", model);
}

Answer 1

I solved it by changing ClassA with a foreign key to ClassB, and setting the value of BId:

public class ClassA
{
  public int? Id {get; set;}
  public string Name { get; set;}
  public int BId {get;set;} // foreign key to B
  public virtual ClassB B {get; set;}
}

Why does this foreign key property does the job instead of the generated foreign ky of EF?