linq query anonymous type cannot be converted to POCO object

Question

I have the following linq query ...

public List<UserProject> GetProjectsByUser(int userid)
{
    //var query =
    return (
               from p in this.Entities.Projects
               join c in this.Entities.Categories 
                   on p.CategoryId equals c.CategoryId
               join u in this.Entities.Users 
                   on p.UserId equals u.UserId
               where p.UserId == 11
               select
                   new
                       {
                           p.ProjectId,
                           u.UserName,
                           p.UserId,
                           ProjectName = p.Name,
                           ProjectDescription = p.Description,
                           CategoryName = c.Name
                       }
               into pcup
               join m in this.Entities.Messages
                   on
                   pcup.ProjectId equals m.ProjectId
                   into pm
               select
                   new {
                       pcup.ProjectId, 
                       pcup.UserId, 
                       pcup.ProjectName, 
                       pcup.ProjectDescription, 
                       Messages = pm
                   }
           ).ToList<UserProject>();
}

and I have the following view object that I am trying to populate ....

public class UserProject
{
    UserProject()
    {
        Messages = new EnumerableQuery<Message>();
    }

    public int ProjectId;
    public int UserId;
    public string ProjectName;
    public string ProjectDescription;
    public IEnumerable<Message> Messages;
    //public string UserName;
    //public string CategoryName;
    //public int CategoryId;
}

A project may have 0 or messages on it. My goal here is to pass a list of UserProject objects to my MVC view , each UserProject object can have a collection of messages. The error I get is as follows

Error 1 Instance argument: cannot convert from 'System.Linq.IQueryable<AnonymousType#1>' to 'System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<Riebro.Services.UserProject>'

Error 2 'System.Linq.IQueryable<AnonymousType#1>' does not contain a definition for 'ToList' and the best extension method overload 'System.Linq.Enumerable.ToList<TSource>(System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<TSource>)' has some invalid arguments

Currently the messages entity does not have a navigation property to Projects ... it should ... I will add that change later ... but at the moment I just need to keep on working.

EDIT

As it stands now the linq query looks like this ...

    return (
               from p in this.Entities.Projects
               join c in this.Entities.Categories 
                   on p.CategoryId equals c.CategoryId
               join u in this.Entities.Users 
                   on p.UserId equals u.UserId
               where p.UserId == userid
               select
                   new 
                       {
                           p.ProjectId,
                           u.UserName,
                           p.UserId,
                           p.Name,
                           p.Description,
                           //CategoryName = c.Name
                       }
                   into pcup
                   join m in this.Entities.Messages
                       on
                       pcup.ProjectId equals m.ProjectId
                       into pm
                   select
                       new UserProject { 
                           ProjectId = pcup.ProjectId, 
                           UserId = pcup.UserId,  
                           ProjectName = pcup.Name, 
                           ProjectDescription = pcup.Description, 
                           Messages = pm 
                       }
           ).ToList<UserProject>();

and the view class looks like this ...

public class UserProject
{
    public UserProject()
    {
        Messages = new List<Message>();
    }

    public int ProjectId;
    public string UserName;
    public int UserId;
    public string ProjectName;
    public string ProjectDescription;
    public List<Message> Messages;
    //public string CategoryName;
    //public int CategoryId;
}

and I am now getting the following error ...

Error 1 Cannot implicitly convert type 'System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<Riebro.Message>' to 'System.Collections.Generic.List<Riebro.Message>'. An explicit conversion exists (are you missing a cast?)

Solution

You should create a UserProject instance instead of an anonymous object in your select statement.

 select new UserProject 
            {
                ProjectId = pcup.ProjectId,
                UserID = pcup.UserId,
                ProjectName = pcup.ProjectName,
                ProjectDescription = pcup.ProjectDescription, 
                Messages = pm
            }

Comments

[Ahmad Mageed]

+1 in addition, the UserProject() constructor, which initializes Messages, should be made public, otherwise it will be inaccessible.

[Kevin Donde]

Thanks ... that works initially ... but I am now stuck with ... Error 1 Cannot implicitly convert type 'System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable<Riebro.Message>' to 'System.Collections.Generic.List<Riebro.Message>'. An explicit conversion exists (are you missing a cast?)

[Ufuk Hacıoğulları]

Use ToList() at the end of your query