entity framework - Simple Linq query has duplicated join against same table?

Question

(From an example in the new Entity Framework book by Julia Lerman.) I have a database with two tables, Contact and Address. The Contact table has a ContactID (int), as well as first name, last name, etc. The Address table has a ContactID, as well as city, state, zip, etc.

Here is a simple LINQ query:

var addressGraphQuery = from a in context.Addresses.Include("Contact")
                        orderby a.Contact.LastName, a.Contact.FirstName
                        select a;

From SQL Profiler, I see the following:

SELECT 
    [Extent1].[addressID] AS [addressID], 
    [Extent1].[City] AS [City], 
    [Extent1].[StateProvince] AS [StateProvince], 
    -- etc
    [Extent3].[ContactID] AS [ContactID1], 
    [Extent3].[FirstName] AS [FirstName], 
    [Extent3].[LastName] AS [LastName], 
    -- etc
FROM   [dbo].[Address] AS [Extent1]
INNER JOIN [dbo].[Contact] AS [Extent2] ON [Extent1].[ContactID] = [Extent2].[ContactID]
LEFT OUTER JOIN [dbo].[Contact] AS [Extent3] ON [Extent1].[ContactID] = [Extent3].[ContactID]
ORDER BY [Extent2].[LastName] ASC, [Extent3].[FirstName] ASC

It joins against the Contact table twice! Why? Is there an easy way to prevent this?

---

The mystery deepens. The joins disappear when I remove the orderby's. The joins do not disappear when I set context.ContextOptions.LazyLoadingEnabled = false.

There is also a similar question here:

Too Many Left Outer Joins in Entity Framework 4?

I'll see if there's a Higher Power I can ask...

Answer 1

Thank you for reporting this issue. Yes, it is not expected to see both joins. This is a bug that has been fixed in the current (not yet released) bits. In the current bits the same query produces:

SELECT
[Extent1].[Id] AS [Id],
[Extent1].[Name] AS [Name],
[Extent1].[ContactId] AS [ContactId],
...
[Extent2].[Id] AS [Id1],
..
[Extent2].[FirstName] AS [FirstName],
[Extent2].[LastName] AS [LastName]
FROM  [dbo].[Address] AS [Extent1]
INNER JOIN [dbo].[Contact] AS [Extent2] ON [Extent1].[ContactId] = [Extent2].[Id] ORDER BY [Extent2].[LastName] ASC, [Extent2].[FirstName] ASC

I bit of playing shows that even on 4.0 this only happens when the relationship is 1:many, 0..1:many seems fine.

Thanks,

Kati Iceva
Entity Framework Developer
Microsoft