EF5 automatically sort navigation properties

Question

I have a class structure which is used by Entity Framework (code-first);

public class Product
{
  public int Id { get; set; }
  public string Name { get; set; }

  public virtual ICollection<Image> Images { get; set; }
}

public class Image
{
  public int Id { get; set; }
  public int Order { get; set; }
}

The Image class has an Order field, which can essentially handle sorting. At some point in my application I write a line such as;

BindImages(product.Images);

What I would like is for the Images to be automatically sorted by the Order field when I request a product.Images, without me having to write product.Images.OrderBy(x => x.Order) everywhere.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Answer 1

EF cannot do for you what you want. But you can do this. You can add to your type another property

public IEnumerable<Image> OrderedImages
{
   get{return Images.OrderBy(x => x.Order); }
}

and use it instead previous collection.