Making DDD Style Entities

[MarkLFT]

I am trying to make my output more in line with DDD guidelines, and I could use a little help on how to achieve some items.

What I have done:

• Set Settings.UsePropertyInitialisers to true, so I can create my own constructors.

What I want to achieve:

• Remove all navigation properties from child entities to prevent accessing parents from children.
• Use a backing list on child ICollections so we can make the child collections readonly. We will add methods to add/remove items to the child collection in the partial class file.
• If one does not already exist, auto-generate the base partial class with a protected parameterless constructor (required for EF), so I can then just add the required parameterised constructor. We have hundreds of tables in our database, so every little thing that can be automated helps. ;)

As a suggestion for the future, could we create a set of templates that more closely follow the DDD principals?

Any assistance anyone could offer on these items would be greatly appreciated.

[MarkLFT]

One more item on the wish list is can we make the entity properties as {get; private set;}?

[MarkLFT]

I have found the ForeignKeyFilterFunc delegate, and in particular the IncludeReverseNavigation property. But this works the opposite way to what I expected. If I set it to false, the collection from the parent vanishes, but the reverse property in the child remains.

How do I set it to remove the reverse navigation property from the child and leave the collection in the parent?

[sjh37]

Reverse property

Set the foreign key IncludeReverseNavigation to false, like so:

Settings.ForeignKeyFilterFunc = delegate(ForeignKey fk)
{
    fk.IncludeReverseNavigation = false;
    return fk;
};

Is that the right way around? I've got a feeling it's not, but it's worth a look anyway.

{ get; private set; }

In EF.Reverse.POCO.v3.ttinclude search for PrivateSetterForComputedColumns = Settings.UsePrivateSetterForComputedColumns && col.IsComputed ? "private " : string.Empty, and replace with PrivateSetterForComputedColumns = "private ", Should be approx line 3903.

Partial classes

That would need a few tweaks to the code to check for the existence of the file and skip if it already exists. I don't have the time to create this for you, but I would say you need to search for codeOutputList.Add(pocoClass + table.NameHumanCase, codeGenerator.GeneratePoco(table)); and add another line below that like

var partialCode = codeGenerator.GeneratePocoPartial(table);
if(partialCode != null)
    codeOutputList.Add(pocoClass + table.NameHumanCase + "partial", partialCode);

And then create your GeneratePocoPartial function to check for its existence, and create it if its not there.

[MarkLFT]

Many thanks for the reply.

Setting IncludeReverseNavigation removed the collection, and not the reverse property. I think this naming is a little confusing. To remove the reverse property and leave the collection, I changed line 3920 in the include file to be HasForeignKey = false, //table.HasForeignKey, although messy, it achieved what I was after.

The advice for the private setter worked well, but I had to perform a fix afterwards, as it also made the audit properties, ChangedOn, etc., which are defined in interfaces, private also. Which I want these to be private, because the properties are public from the interface, they must also be public. I have yet to find a way to have these interface properties private so they conform with DDD principles.

For the partial class option, I understand some code changes would be required. I had a quick look at your code, but to be honest, I also do not have the time to work out how your code works. So I will continue creating the partial class manually. Maybe make a VS snippet to help.

Thanks for the help, and thanks for a great project.