Azure table entity model design - azure

Question

In most examples of table entity models I see something like:
public class CustomerEntity : TableEntity
{
public CustomerEntity(string lastName, string firstName)
{
this.PartitionKey = lastName;
this.RowKey = firstName;
}
public CustomerEntity() { }
public string Email { get; set; }
public string PhoneNumber { get; set; }
}
As we see here lastname and firstname used as partition key and row key accordingly. So later after saving and retrieving an entity I can access those info from PartitionKey and RowKey properties. But what if I want to send this model to client side later as json, I suppose PartitionKey and RowKey of TableEntity base class would not be serialized. So if i add LastName and FirstName as properties to model, then unnecessary data duplication will occur in storage. What is the best way avoid data duplication in storage and in the same time have an access to lastname and firstname after model been serialized.

Answer 1

You can always use a getter method on your class to avoid confusion:
public class CustomerEntity : TableEntity
{
public CustomerEntity(string lastName, string firstName)
{
this.PartitionKey = lastName;
this.RowKey = firstName;
}
public CustomerEntity() { }
public string Email { get; set; }
public string PhoneNumber { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get { return this.RowKey; } }
public string LastName { get { return this.PartitionKey; } }
}
Or, you could map the data to an anonymous object in your API and return that via JSON:
var customerJson = new
{
Firstname = customer.RowKey,
LastName = customer. PartitionKey,
customer.Email,
customer.PhoneNumber
};
return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(customerJson);