Lazy-load POCO entity from proxy

Question

I'm trying to create a POCO proxy for an entity already known to be in the database--similar to the nHibernate Session.Load().

I'd like to set the ID value and then if any other properties are accessed on the entity, the other properties are lazy-loaded--again, similar to the nHibernate Session.Load()

I've tried creating a proxy with ObjectContext.CreateObject(), setting the ID value, and attaching it to the context. But the properties don't lazy-load when accessed. The navigation properties, however, will lazy-load just fine.

I'd like this functionality for cases where I need an entity and know the ID, but don't want to force an extra database hit to load the entity. I also want to ensure that the properties can be loaded in the event that they are needed.

Is this possible with Entity Framework 4?

Answer 1

No it is not possible. The reason is that Entity framework supports only lazy loading of navigation properties. You cannot lazy load scalar or complex properties. You must load the entity from database to get them filled.