Should I bind navigation properties or entity ids in reusable components?

Question

I am using Blazor with InteractiveServer at the applcation level and Radzen component library.

I would like to create resuable components that fetch their own data for things like dropdowns. For example, I have a Request entity with the following fields:

public class Request
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public int RequesterId { get; set; }
    public virtual User Requester { get; set; }
    public virtual ICollection<User>? Alternates { get; set; }
}

I am extending the RadzenDropDown component like so:

public class UserDropDown<TValue> : RadzenDropDown<TValue>
{
    [Inject] public IDbContextFactory<DataContext> DbFactory { get; set; }
    public UserDropDown() : base()
    {
        TextProperty = nameof(User.FullName);
        AllowSelectAll = false;
        AllowClear = false;
    }
    protected override async Task OnInitializedAsync()
    {
        await base.OnInitializedAsync();
        using DataContext dbContext = DbFactory.CreateDbContext();
        Data = await dbContext.Users.ToListAsync();
    }
    protected override async Task OnParametersSetAsync()
    {
        await base.OnParametersSetAsync();
        Chips = Multiple;
    }
}

When using the component, I could either bind to request.Requester or request.RequesterId. For the alternates, there is an advantage to just binding to the navigation property request.Alternates and letting the Radzen component handle adding and removing users from the collection. Then I don't have to worry about diffing a list of ids to figure out what operations to perform on the collection. But the parent component using <UserDropDown /> fetches the request in a different dbContext, and EF Core does not see the users in the alternates list as the same objects.

So, I think my options are:

1. Override GetHashCode() and Equals() on the Request class so that EF compares them correctly
2. Fetch the list of Users in the parent component and pass them to the UserDropDown
3. Work with the ids instead of with the navigation properties

I have tried all three of these approaches and they seem to each have pros and cons. What is the recommended way of accomplishing this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

why are you storing User entities in the dropdown? seems like a collection of name/value pairs of FullName and Id would be all that's required.

if the hosting compoent can change the collection, then I'd just have a variable collection the dropdown bound to.