MVC List Not Working as it should

[Vegeta ZA]

Hi Everyone,

So the issue that I am having is getting the correct db items to work in the search in the web page, for some reason it does not search all of the values from Vehicle_Make that exist in Vehicle_Details - Make_ID is the primary key of Vehicle_Make and it is a FK in Vehicle_Details.

What happens is, it shows all the items on the page in a list, but the search does not work when I search for any of those items.

 [HttpPost]
        public ActionResult Search(string Location)
        {

               GoogleMapEntities GE = new GoogleMapEntities();

            ////SELECT Make_Name DATA FROM DB1
            var result = GE.Vehicle_Make.Where(x => x.Make_Name.StartsWith(Location)).ToList();
            var GetVeh = (from vd in db.Vehicle_Details
                          join vm in db.Vehicle_Make
                          on vd.Make_ID equals vm.Make_ID
                          join u in db.User
                          on vd.User_ID equals u.User_ID
                          select vd).ToList();

            //SELECT ALL ELEMENTS FROM Veh Make TABLE THAT EXISTS ON Veh Details TABLE BASED ON EXISTING ID's            
            var resultFinal = (from e in result
                               where (from m in GetVeh
                                       select m.Make_ID).Contains(e.Make_ID)
                               select e
                              ).ToList();

            return Json(resultFinal, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet);

        } 

Another weird thing that happens is, if I add the "!" in the following code, it does return the vehicle makes that do not exist in the vehicle details table but without the "!", it does not search for the values that do exist in both tables.

var resultFinal = (from e in result
where !(from m in GetVeh 
select m.Make_ID).Contains(e.Make_ID)
select e
).ToList(); 

Sample Data:
1. BMW exists in Vehicle_Make(Make_ID PK) and Vehicle_Details(Make_ID FK).
2. Vespa exists in Vehicle_Make but not in Vehicle_Details

If I search for BMW it does not work but if I search for Vespa or any vehicle that does not exist in the Vehicle_Details table, it will find those, but not the vehicles that exist in both tables.

Once I get the correct items that need to be searched for like BMW, it must match the Dealerships(Users table) and take the MapLat & MapLong from the "Users" table and then pin point them onto the map.

Vehicle_Details has (User_ID FK) which is the PK of the Users Table.

Basically, Vehicle_Details has Users and Vehicle_Make linked to it, while Users and Vehicle_Make do not have a link in them so therefore vehicle details is the link. Is this possible to make work for what I require?

Thanks !

[Vegeta ZA]

Anybody have an idea how I can make this project work with my requirements?

[Arjay]

Have you tried setting a breakpoint and stepping through the code?

The first query looks suspect (unless it's a simple case of a misnamed variable). Should vehicle make be compared with location?

[Vegeta ZA]

The string is just called "Location". That won't affect anything bud. I called it location in the web page code as well and never change it as yet, but that's not the part with the issue. I'm just not sure how to make the query work.

[Arjay]

The string is just called "Location". That won't affect anything bud. I called it location in the web page code as well and never change it as yet, but that's not the part with the issue. I'm just not sure how to make the query work.

You have multiple places in your code where one or more problems could be. For example, in the first query, does it return any values? Is location (um, 'make name') getting set to a proper value? Is it empty or null? If result populates correctly, what about GetVeh and resultFinal?

The bottom line is you're going to have to set some breakpoints and debug your code. If you don't know how to do this, let us know and we'll walk you through how to do it. Knowing how to debug is a great skill to have and will save you a bunch of time. Rather than guessing what a problem is, you can see the values and know what is going on.

[Vegeta ZA]

You have multiple places in your code where one or more problems could be. For example, in the first query, does it return any values? Is location (um, 'make name') getting set to a proper value? Is it empty or null? If result populates correctly, what about GetVeh and resultFinal?

The bottom line is you're going to have to set some breakpoints and debug your code. If you don't know how to do this, let us know and we'll walk you through how to do it. Knowing how to debug is a great skill to have and will save you a bunch of time. Rather than guessing what a problem is, you can see the values and know what is going on.

1. Yes the "Location" does return all the make_name's that exist in vehicle_details table, I will change "Location" to vehicle_make soon but that doesn't affect anything now so I left it. It's just the string name for the method and I called it up in the index class so for now, since that's not the issue(I Hope :P), I will leave it till the main objective is fixed.

2. Please walk me through how to debug this specific project, every time I do it, it loops through the same code over and over and I don't really know what's happening. I'm still a MVC noob.

3. I think the issue comes from the other two queries because for some reason when I use the following code, it allows me to search for the vehicles that exist in Vehicle_Make but not Vehicle_Details so I am guessing that the link between the tables is what's broken:

var resultFinal = (from e in result 
                               where !(from m in GetVeh 
                                       select m.Make_ID).Contains(e.Make_ID) 
                               select e 
                              ).ToList(); 

When I have the "!", i am able to search for the vehicles that do not exist in both tables, but only the ones that exist in vehicle make, this makes sense because vehicle make has all the vehicles and vehicle details does not have all of these foreign keys(Make_ID). So what I do not get is, how come it is able to allow me to search for the vehicles that do not exist in both but only Vehicle_Make, and it returns the vehicle that I search for, but when I remove the "!" to search for the vehicles that do exist in both then it does not work. The search is just blank and the list disappears.

[Arjay]

When running the code locally....

To set a breakpoint, click on the line of code with the mouse and press F9. Press F5 to start debugging. Navigate through the app to the functionality you are trying to test (i.e., the search function in this case).

Your breakpoint should hit. Use F10 to start stepping over each line of code. After a line of code has executed, hover over a variable to see its value. If the variable is a class or collection, you may have to expand its properties to see any interesting values.

Doing this for the 3 queries in the code should tell you which query is not returning results. Adjust the queries as appropriate.

[Vegeta ZA]

When running the code locally....

To set a breakpoint, click on the line of code with the mouse and press F9. Press F5 to start debugging. Navigate through the app to the functionality you are trying to test (i.e., the search function in this case).

Your breakpoint should hit. Use F10 to start stepping over each line of code. After a line of code has executed, hover over a variable to see its value. If the variable is a class or collection, you may have to expand its properties to see any interesting values.

Doing this for the 3 queries in the code should tell you which query is not returning results. Adjust the queries as appropriate.

I have managed to fix the code, and it is giving me better results. Just a few more things to sort out and then I would be proud of this code. Thanks a lot for your suggestions, I made a few changes in the db, used Linqer to covert my sql code to linq and also in the return statement at the end, I removed the resultFinal and just used GetVeh and it seems to be working better. Just need to make it work faster as well as do some other changes and then this will be working 100% to my requirements!