How to map a list of related DTOs in a DTO: Nesting DTO mapping

Question

How to map a list of related DTOs in a DTO: Nesting DTO mapping

asp.net-core c# dto entity-framework-core linq-to-sql

Question

Suppose you have a fully defined relationship of books and authors in a large database with many other relationships

public class Book
{
   public int Id { get; set; }
   public string Title { get; set; }
   ...
   Public int AuthorId { get; set; }
   Public Author Author { get; set; }
}

public class Author
{
   public int Id { get; set; }
   public int GroupId { get; set; }
   public string Name { get; set; }
   ...
   public List<Book> Books { get; set; }
   ...
}

And in your controller you want to return a list of authors, each containing the list of books associated with them using DTOs.

public class BookDTO
{
   public int Id { get; set; }
   public string Title { get; set; }
}

public class AuthorDTO
{
   public int Id { get; set; }
   public string Name { get; set; }
   public List<BookDTO> Books { get; set; }
}

What is the right way to generate that list of DTOs within a DTO?

Could you do something like this?

var author = from a in _context.authors.Where(a => a.groupId == someGroup)
   select new AuthorDTO()
   {
      Id = a.Id,
      Name = a.Name,
      Books = (from b in a.Books
         select new BookDTO()
         {
            Id = b.Id,
            Title = b.Title
         }).ToList()
   };

Or maybe something like this?

var author = from a in _context.authors.Where(a => a.groupId == someGroup)
   select new AuthorDTO()
   {
      Id = a.Id,
      Name = a.Name,
      Books = (from b in _context.books.Where(b => b.AuthorId == a.AuthorId)
         select new BookDTO()
         {
            Id = b.Id,
            Title = b.Title
         }).ToList()
    };

EDIT:

To hopefully be a bit clearer, I rephrased and reposed my question here:

How to return list of DTO with nested lists of related DTO

marno11

View more on Stack Overflow

Yigit Tanriverdi · Accepted Answer · 7/18/2019 3:09:15 PM

This is Mapper profile example. Profile class comes from Automapper lib.

public class ApplicationServiceAutoMapperProfile : Profile
{
    public ApplicationServiceAutoMapperProfile()
    {
         //Don't use ForMember method if you want to show Id's
         CreateMap<Book, BookDTO>()
            .ForMember(m => m.Id, opt => opt.Ignore());

         CreateMap<Author, AuthorDTO>()
            .ForMember(m => m.Id, opt => opt.Ignore());
    }
}

This is How you can map.GetAuthors Method returns mapped Dtos.

public class CustomService {
    private readonly IMapper _mapper;
    private readonly DBContext _context;

    public CustomService(IMapper mapper, DBContext context){
        _mapper = mapper;
        _context = context;
    }

    public IEnumerable<AuthorDTO> GetAuthors(){
        //Automapper automaticaly maps authors's bookdto's also.
        var authors = _context.authors.Where(a => a.groupId == 2).ToList();
        return _mapper.Map<List<AuthorDTO>>(authors);
    }
}

How to map a list of related DTOs in a DTO: Nesting DTO mapping

Question

Fastest Entity Framework Extensions

Popular Answer

Performance

Expression Evaluator

Related