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Lazy Loading of Related Data

Lazy loading with proxies

The simplest way to use lazy-loading is by installing the Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Proxies package and enabling it with a call to UseLazyLoadingProxies. For example:

protected override void OnConfiguring(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder)
    => optionsBuilder
        .UseLazyLoadingProxies()
        .UseSqlServer(myConnectionString);

Or when using AddDbContext:

.AddDbContext<BloggingContext>(
    b => b.UseLazyLoadingProxies()
          .UseSqlServer(myConnectionString));

EF Core will then enable lazy loading for any navigation property that can be overridden--that is, it must be virtual and on a class that can be inherited from. For example, in the following entities, the Post.Blog and Blog.Posts navigation properties will be lazy-loaded.

public class Blog
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<Post> Posts { get; set; }
}

public class Post
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Title { get; set; }
    public string Content { get; set; }

    public virtual Blog Blog { get; set; }
}

Warning

Lazy loading can cause unneeded extra database roundtrips to occur (the so-called N+1 problem), and care should be taken to avoid this. See the performance section for more details.

Lazy loading without proxies

Lazy-loading without proxies work by injecting the ILazyLoader service into an entity, as described in Entity Type Constructors. For example:

public class Blog
{
    private ICollection<Post> _posts;

    public Blog()
    {
    }

    private Blog(ILazyLoader lazyLoader)
    {
        LazyLoader = lazyLoader;
    }

    private ILazyLoader LazyLoader { get; set; }

    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public ICollection<Post> Posts
    {
        get => LazyLoader.Load(this, ref _posts);
        set => _posts = value;
    }
}

public class Post
{
    private Blog _blog;

    public Post()
    {
    }

    private Post(ILazyLoader lazyLoader)
    {
        LazyLoader = lazyLoader;
    }

    private ILazyLoader LazyLoader { get; set; }

    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Title { get; set; }
    public string Content { get; set; }

    public Blog Blog
    {
        get => LazyLoader.Load(this, ref _blog);
        set => _blog = value;
    }
}

This method doesn't require entity types to be inherited from or navigation properties to be virtual, and allows entity instances created with new to lazy-load once attached to a context. However, it requires a reference to the ILazyLoader service, which is defined in the Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Abstractions package. This package contains a minimal set of types so that there is little impact in depending on it. However, to completely avoid depending on any EF Core packages in the entity types, it's possible to inject the ILazyLoader.Load method as a delegate. For example:

public class Blog
{
    private ICollection<Post> _posts;

    public Blog()
    {
    }

    private Blog(Action<object, string> lazyLoader)
    {
        LazyLoader = lazyLoader;
    }

    private Action<object, string> LazyLoader { get; set; }

    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public ICollection<Post> Posts
    {
        get => LazyLoader.Load(this, ref _posts);
        set => _posts = value;
    }
}

public class Post
{
    private Blog _blog;

    public Post()
    {
    }

    private Post(Action<object, string> lazyLoader)
    {
        LazyLoader = lazyLoader;
    }

    private Action<object, string> LazyLoader { get; set; }

    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Title { get; set; }
    public string Content { get; set; }

    public Blog Blog
    {
        get => LazyLoader.Load(this, ref _blog);
        set => _blog = value;
    }
}

The code above uses a Load extension method to make using the delegate a bit cleaner:

public static class PocoLoadingExtensions
{
    public static TRelated Load<TRelated>(
        this Action<object, string> loader,
        object entity,
        ref TRelated navigationField,
        [CallerMemberName] string navigationName = null)
        where TRelated : class
    {
        loader?.Invoke(entity, navigationName);

        return navigationField;
    }
}

Note

The constructor parameter for the lazy-loading delegate must be called "lazyLoader". Configuration to use a different name than this is planned for a future release.