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How to: Navigate Relationships with the Navigate Operator

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This topic shows how to execute a command against a conceptual model by using an EntityCommand object, and how to retrieve the RefType results by using an EntityDataReader.

To run the code in this example

  1. Add the AdventureWorks Sales Model to your project and configure your project to use the Entity Framework. For more information, see How to: Use the Entity Data Model Wizard.

  2. In the code page for your application, add the following using directives (Imports in Visual Basic):

    using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.Common;
using System.Data.EntityClient;
using System.Data.Metadata.Edm;

    Imports System.Collections.Generic
Imports System.Collections
Imports System.Data.Common
Imports System.Data
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Data.SqlClient
Imports System.Data.EntityClient
Imports System.Data.Metadata.Edm

Example

The following example shows how to navigate relationships in Entity SQL by using the NAVIGATE operator. The Navigate operator takes the following parameters: an instance of an entity, the relationship type, the end of the relationship, and the beginning of the relationship. Optionally, you can pass only an instance of an entity and the relationship type to the Navigate operator.

using (EntityConnection conn =
    new EntityConnection("name=AdventureWorksEntities"))
{
    conn.Open();
    // Create an EntityCommand.
    using (EntityCommand cmd = conn.CreateCommand())
    {
        // Create an Entity SQL query.
        string esqlQuery =
            @"SELECT address.AddressID, (SELECT VALUE DEREF(soh) FROM
          NAVIGATE(address, AdventureWorksModel.FK_SalesOrderHeader_Address_BillToAddressID)
          AS soh) FROM AdventureWorksEntities.Addresses AS address";

        cmd.CommandText = esqlQuery;

        // Execute the command.
        using (DbDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.SequentialAccess))
        {
            // Start reading.
            while (rdr.Read())
            {
                Console.WriteLine(rdr["AddressID"]);
            }
        }
    }
    conn.Close();
}

Using conn As New EntityConnection("name=AdventureWorksEntities")
    conn.Open()
    ' Create an EntityCommand. 
    Using cmd As EntityCommand = conn.CreateCommand()
        ' Create an Entity SQL query. 
        Dim esqlQuery As String = "SELECT address.AddressID, (SELECT VALUE DEREF(soh) FROM " & _
            " NAVIGATE(address, AdventureWorksModel.FK_SalesOrderHeader_Address_BillToAddressID) " & _
            " AS soh) FROM AdventureWorksEntities.Addresses AS address"


        cmd.CommandText = esqlQuery

        ' Execute the command. 
        Using rdr As DbDataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.SequentialAccess)
            ' Start reading. 
            While rdr.Read()
                Console.WriteLine(rdr("AddressID"))
            End While
        End Using
    End Using
    conn.Close()
End Using

See also