Entity associations

Question

i started to read Entity Framework Book. in first part of book it describes entity and object similarities and differents. it writes :

Each entity has associations with other entities.

what is the meaning of associations with other entities ? is that like relation ? associations in my language means something like community(!). so i can't Understand what does it mean.

Answer 1

Yes it means relation. Each entity can have association / relation to other entities which allows some advanced concepts like loading related entities by single query, building complex queries or loading realted entities on demand.

Example:

public class Order
{
    public virtual ICollection<OrderItem> OrderItems { get; set; }
}

public class OrderItem
{
    public virtual Order Order { get; set; }
}

Here we have two entities related in one-to-many relation. Both entities have navigation property to their related entities.