Breeze & EFContextProvider - How to properly return $type when using expand()?

Question

I am using Breeze with much success in my SPA, but seem to be stuck when trying to return parent->child data in a single query by using expand().

When doing a single table query, the $type in the JSON return is correct:

$type: MySPA.Models.Challenge, MySPA without Expand

However if I use expand() in my query I get the relational data, but the $type is this:

System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary 2[[System.String, mscorlib],[System.Object, mscorlib]]

with Expand

Because of the $type is not the proper table + namespace, the client side code can't tell that this is an entity and exposes it as JSON and not a Breeze object (with observables, entityAspect, etc.).

At first I was using my own ContextProvider so that I could override the Before/After saving methods. When I had these problems, I reverted back to the stock EFContextProvider<>.

I am using EF5 in a database first mode.

Here's my controller code:

[BreezeController]
public class DataController : ApiController
{
    // readonly ModelProvider _contextProvider = new ModelProvider();
    readonly EFContextProvider<TestEntities> _contextProvider = new EFContextProvider<TestEntities>();

    [HttpGet]
    public string Metadata()
    {
        return _contextProvider.Metadata();
    }

    [Queryable(AllowedQueryOptions = AllowedQueryOptions.All)]
    [HttpGet]
    public IQueryable<Challenge> Challenges()
    {
        return _contextProvider.Context.Challenges; 
    }

    [HttpPost]
    public SaveResult SaveChanges(JObject saveBundle)
    {
        return _contextProvider.SaveChanges(saveBundle);
    }       
    public IQueryable<ChallengeNote> ChallengeNotes()
    {       
        return _contextProvider.Context.ChallengeNotes;
    }
}

Here's my BreezeWebApiConfig.cs

 public static void RegisterBreezePreStart()
  {
      GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.Remove(GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Formatters.XmlFormatter);

      GlobalConfiguration.Configuration.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
          name: "BreezeApi",
          routeTemplate: "breeze/{controller}/{action}"
      );
  }

Is there a configuration setting that I am missing?

Please show both relevant types in your EF model and your client side query... and whether you have any breeze.NamingConvention set. Also take a look at the Breeze DocCode sample, there are several examples of "expand" shown there. — Jay Traband
At this point, I'm bypassing the Breeze client libraries - as you can see from the images above, this is about the response from the server. !image for my model — Carol AndorMarten Liebster

Dominictus Dominictus · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-12T15:23:33

Did you try "expanding" on server side? Is it needed to do expand on client side? I tried to do expand before but failed for me as well, did some research and decided I'd rather place it on server:

[HttpGet]
public IQueryable<Challenge> ChallengesWithNotes()
    {
        return _contextProvider.Context.Challenges.Include("ChallengeNotes"); 
    }

This should be parsed as expected. On client side you would query for "ChallengeNotes" instead of "Challenges" and you wouldn't need to write expand part.

Breeze & EFContextProvider - How to properly return $type when using expand()?

2 Answers