Entity Framework: Saving a record with FK values and NOT looking up relationships

Question

I've got a table "Expenses" that contains an FK value to an "ExpenseType" table. Right now, if I want to save a new expense, I first get the int value of the FK, do a lookup to the ExpenseType table, and assign the object to the expense object. For example:

//create new expense
var e = new Expense();

//lookup the associated expense type
var et = context.ExpenseTypeSet.First(e -> e.expenseTypeID == 10);

//set field values
e.expenseName = "Some name";
e.expenseType = et;

//save
context.Save();

Is there a way to create/insert a record without first being forced to do a lookup against the FK table? The lookup is not needed and forces extra database hits. I already know the FK ID... so is there a way to just set the ID and allow it to be happy?

Thanks in advance -

Answer 1

You can do this using the EntityReference too:

e.expenseTypeReference.EntityKey 
   = new EntityKey("MyContainer.expenseTypeSet", "expenseTypeID", 10);

I have a tips series that covers this and related issues:

The one you might want to look at in particular is this Tip 7 which talks about creating fake properties for FKs. You don't need to go that far, unless you want to, but the principles are useful.