AssociationAttribute Class

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Specifies that an entity member represents a data relationship, such as a foreign key relationship.

Inheritance Hierarchy

System.Object
  System.Attribute
    System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.AssociationAttribute

Namespace:  System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations
Assembly:  System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations (in System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.dll)

Syntax

'Declaration
<AttributeUsageAttribute(AttributeTargets.Property Or AttributeTargets.Field, AllowMultiple := False,  _
    Inherited := True)> _
Public NotInheritable Class AssociationAttribute _
    Inherits Attribute
[AttributeUsageAttribute(AttributeTargets.Property|AttributeTargets.Field, AllowMultiple = false, 
    Inherited = true)]
public sealed class AssociationAttribute : Attribute

The AssociationAttribute type exposes the following members.

Constructors

  Name Description
Public method AssociationAttribute Initializes a new instance of the AssociationAttribute class.

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Properties

  Name Description
Public property IsForeignKey Gets or sets the member as the foreign key in an association that represents a data relationship.
Public property Name Gets the name used to identify the association.
Public property OtherKey Gets a comma-separated list of the property names of the key values on the other side of the association.
Public property OtherKeyMembers Gets the collection of individual key values specified in the OtherKey property.
Public property ThisKey Gets a comma-separated list of property names of the key values on this side of the association.
Public property ThisKeyMembers Gets the collection of individual key values specified in the ThisKey property.

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Methods

  Name Description
Public method Equals Infrastructure. Returns a value that indicates whether this instance is equal to a specified object. (Inherited from Attribute.)
Protected method Finalize Allows an object to try to free resources and perform other cleanup operations before the Object is reclaimed by garbage collection. (Inherited from Object.)
Public method GetHashCode Returns the hash code for this instance. (Inherited from Attribute.)
Public method GetType Gets the Type of the current instance. (Inherited from Object.)
Public method Match When overridden in a derived class, returns a value that indicates whether this instance equals a specified object. (Inherited from Attribute.)
Protected method MemberwiseClone Creates a shallow copy of the current Object. (Inherited from Object.)
Public method ToString Returns a string that represents the current object. (Inherited from Object.)

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Remarks

You apply the AssociationAttribute attribute to the property that represents the data relationship. The property that represents the relationship is usually a collection of objects representing the related class. When applying the attribute, you assign a name for the relationship and the keys associated on both sides of the relationship. For bidirectional associations, the name must be the same on both sides of the association.

When you apply an AssociationAttribute to a member in a WCF RIA Services solution, you must define the same number of keys on both sides of the relationship. If you do not provide the same number of keys to both sides of the relationship, you will receive an error when building the solution.

Version Information

Silverlight

Supported in: 5, 4, 3

Platforms

For a list of the operating systems and browsers that are supported by Silverlight, see Supported Operating Systems and Browsers.

Thread Safety

Any public static (Shared in Visual Basic) members of this type are thread safe. Any instance members are not guaranteed to be thread safe.