How to recursively Iterate over properties of an Entity

Question

Suppose this is what I have in my database

table Ancestor (  
  idAncestor int not null,  
  name varchar(20) not null,  
)  

table Descendant (  
  idDes         


        

Answer 1

This should be a crude version of what you're looking for:

private static void recurseAndPrintProperties(Object ObjectToRecurse) {
   foreach (PropertyInfo pi in ObjectToRecurse.GetType().GetProperties()) {
       if ((pi.PropertyType.IsGenericType && pi.PropertyType.GetGenericTypeDefinition() == typeof(EntityCollection<>))) {
           IEnumerable collection = (IEnumerable)pi.GetValue(ObjectToRecurse, null);

           foreach (object val in collection)
               recurseAndPrintProperties(val);
       } else {
            if (pi.PropertyType == typeof(Descendant)) {
                Descendant actualDescendant = (Descendant)pi.GetValue(ObjectToRecurse, null);
                Console.WriteLine(actualDescendant.idDescendant + " - " + actualDescendant.Name);
            } else
                Console.WriteLine(pi.Name + "  -  " + pi.GetValue(ObjectToRecurse, null));
       }
   }
}

EDIT

This code came from some code I had previously played around with for cloning entities. Here it is (you might have to modify it to also take into consideration not duplicating your properties thar are mapped to primary keys)

    public static T CloneEntity<T>(T Obj) where T : EntityObject, new() {
        T Clone = new T();

        Type typeToClone = Obj.GetType();
        Type[] BadGenericTypes = new Type[] { typeof(EntityCollection<>), typeof(EntityReference<>) };
        Type[] BadTypes = new Type[] { typeof(System.Data.EntityKey) };

        foreach (PropertyInfo pi in typeToClone.GetProperties().Where(p => p.CanWrite)) {
            if (pi.PropertyType.IsGenericType && BadGenericTypes.Contains(pi.PropertyType.GetGenericTypeDefinition())
                || (BadTypes.Contains(pi.PropertyType))
                || (pi.Name.Equals(Extension.GetPropertyName(() => new FMVHistory().FMVHistoryId), StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase)))
                continue;

            pi.SetValue(Clone, pi.GetValue(Obj, null), null);
        }
        return Clone;
    }