I’m working with .NET Core and Entity Framework Core and need to create an app where Employee can create 3 types of posts:
- Idea – telling about what he think could change in organization. It have props:
- Article Request – telling that there is need for something ex. new smartphone
- Question
All three have some common properties which are: Id, AddedDate, Responses (list), Notifications. And each Response has list of Comments.
a) So 1st option – separate classes:
If I will make 3 separate classes with base class then I’ll end up with 3 tables for those 3 post types and there will be the same Ids for both – I mean there will be Question with Id=1, and Idea with Id=1.
On Response class I can’t reference it by PostId, because it doesn’t actually exist I would do something like that:
class BaseResponse<TPost> where TPost : BasePost {
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Message { get; set; }
public User Author { get; set; }
public TPost Post { get; set; }
}
class IdeaResponse : BaseResponse<Idea> {}
class ArticleRequestResponse : BaseResponse<ArticleRequest> {}
class QuestionResponse : BaseResponse<Question> {}
and in Context.cs:
public DbSet<Idea> Ideas { get; set; }
public DbSet<ArticleRequest> ArticleRequests { get; set; }
public DbSet<Question> Questions { get; set; }
public DbSet<IdeaResponse> IdeaResponses { get; set; }
public DbSet<ArticleRequestResponse> ArticleRequestResponses { get; set; }
public DbSet<QuestionResponse> QuestionResponses { get; set; }
So also 3 classes for responses, and then similar thing for notifications and also comments
b) 2nd option: 1 class with nullable properties with referenced data:
class Post {
public int Id { get; set; }
public DateTime AddedDate { get; set; }
public PostType Type { get; set; { // enum
public IdeaData IdeaData { get; set; } // != null when Type == PostType.Idea
public ArticleRequestData ArticleRequestData { get; set; } // != null when Type == PostType.ArticleRequest
public QuestionData QuestionData { get; set; } // != null when Type == PostType.Question
}
In that case I could create one Response class, one Notification class, and one Comment class.
Or maybe there is some other option? If something is unclear, please let me know and I will explain it in more details.
