Odata Bind uses EntityType not EntitySet

[jamesstanleystewart]

Possibly just a question, possibly a bug.

Given some simplified metadata:

<EntityType Name="XResource">
	<Key>
		<PropertyRef Name="Id"/>
	</Key>
	<Property Name="Id" Type="Edm.Guid" Nullable="false"/>
	<NavigationProperty Name="Y" Type="Models.YResource"/>
</EntityType>

<EntitySet Name="Xs" EntityType="Models.XResource">

<EntityType Name="YResource">
	<Key>
		<PropertyRef Name="Id"/>
	</Key>
	<Property Name="Id" Type="Edm.Guid" Nullable="false"/>
</EntityType>

<EntitySet Name="Ys" EntityType="Models.YResource">

Odata Service endpoints:

service/v2/Xs(Guid) returns a XResource
service/v2/Ys(Guid) returns a YResource

Attempting to create an XResource entry:

Client.For<OdataServiceX>("Xs")
	.Set(backendX)
	.InsertEntryAsync()

where C#:

backendX = BackendX { y = BackendY(Guid) }

generates odata body:

{
        @odata.type=#Models.XResource 
	[email protected]=service/v2/YResource(Guid)
}

where I would expect

{
        @odata.type=#Models.XResource 
	[email protected]=service/v2/Ys(Guid)
}

Changing Type name of "BackendY" to "Y" will make the client correctly find service/v2/Ys(Guid)

It seems the client uses the EntityType and not the EntitySet for trying to best match an unknown type name?
Is there a way to use classes that are not named the same as the model endpoint names?

[object]

I agree that EntitySet name should be preferred to EntityType, I will check this out. As a workaround you can attach either Table or DataContract attribute to a class, e.g.

[Table(Name="Ys")]
public class OdataServiceY

[jamesstanleystewart]

The annotations didn't seem to work for me. I tried both Table and DataContract on the class and Column on the property.

What did work, is pulling the source into my project and adding:

if (TryGetEntityType(typeName, out entityType) && TryGetEntitySetByType(entityType.FullTypeName(), out entitySet))
{
    return entitySet.Name;
}

To metadata.cs just before the entityType.Name is used (line 124).

private bool TryGetEntitySetByType(string entityType, out IEdmEntitySet entitySet) {
    if (entityType.Contains("/"))
	    entityType = entityType.Split('/').First();

    entitySet = _model.SchemaElements
	    .Where(x => x.SchemaElementKind == EdmSchemaElementKind.EntityContainer)
	    .SelectMany(x => (x as IEdmEntityContainer).EntitySets())
	    .BestMatch(x => x.Type.AsElementType().FullTypeName(), entityType, _session.Settings.NameMatchResolver);

    return entitySet != null;
}

Does this solution break logic elsewhere?

[object]

Thank you for your finding. I will investigate this further.

[JaxomF]

Hi,
Any update on this bug ?

[CJTalbot87]

I have also have this issue where the EntityType is used and not the EntitySet, the DataAnnotations also did not work for me.

Is there any "clean" way to override the used OData Bind entity name?

[swidz]

I am having also this issue, I have not digged into the source code yet, but it behaves rather strange. For most of the odata.bindings the entitySet name is used but for the one which actually causes the problem an entity type name is used.