How to get latest record for each group using Entity Framework and MySQL including related entity

Question

I am using Entity Framework with a MySQL Database and DbContext. I have an entity "Message" that has a related entity "Sender". (The "Message" also has a related entity "Receiver"). I am trying to write a query that will return only the "latest" message for each receiver. But when I do this, I also want to load the associated "Sender" so that I can get access to one of the Sender's properties (e-mail field) which I need to include in my Data Transfer Object I am returning. "MessageDTO" is the Data Transfer Object I am returning that includes the id of the message, the content of the message and the sender's email.

If I exclude the sender's email from the DTO, then the following query returns exactly what I need (namely, the latest message for each receiver):

var refGroupQuery = (from m in dbContext.Messages.SqlQuery("select * from messages order by created_at desc")
     group m by m.receiver_id into refGroup
     select new MessageDTO { id = refGroup.FirstOrDefault().id, content = refGroup.FirstOrDefault().content});

However, the above statement does not load the Sender that is associated with the Message so when I re-include the sender's email in the DTO I get a NullReferenceException as shown below:

var refGroupQuery = (from m in dbContext.Messages.SqlQuery("select * from messages order by created_at desc")
     group m by m.receiver_id into refGroup
     select new MessageDTO { id = refGroup.FirstOrDefault().id, content = refGroup.FirstOrDefault().content, sender_email = refGroup.FirstOrDefault().sender.email});

refGroup.FirstOrDefault().sender.email throws a NullReferenceException because sender is null.

How can I load the Sender in the query so that I can include the Sender's email in my DTO?

EDIT:

As requested, I include the SQL that gets generated by Gert Arnold's suggested method:

{SELECT
1 AS `C1`, 
`Apply1`.`id`, 
`Apply1`.`sender_id`, 
`Apply1`.`RECEIVER_ID1` AS `receiver_id`, 
`Apply1`.`created_at`, 
`Apply1`.`read_status`, 
`Extent3`.`email`
FROM (SELECT
`Distinct1`.`receiver_id`, 
(SELECT
`Project2`.`id`
FROM (SELECT
`Extent2`.`id`, 
`Extent2`.`sender_id`, 
`Extent2`.`receiver_id`, 
`Extent2`.`created_at`, 
`Extent2`.`read_status`
FROM `messages` AS `Extent2`
 WHERE (`Extent1`.`receiver_id` = `Extent2`.`receiver_id`) OR ((`Extent1`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL) AND (`Extent2`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL))) AS `Project2` LIMIT 1) AS `id`, 
(SELECT
`Project2`.`sender_id`
FROM (SELECT
`Extent2`.`id`, 
`Extent2`.`sender_id`, 
`Extent2`.`receiver_id`, 
`Extent2`.`content`, 
`Extent2`.`created_at`, 
`Extent2`.`read_status`
FROM `messages` AS `Extent2`
 WHERE (`Extent1`.`receiver_id` = `Extent2`.`receiver_id`) OR ((`Extent1`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL) AND (`Extent2`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL))) AS `Project2` LIMIT 1) AS `sender_id`, 
(SELECT
`Project2`.`receiver_id`
FROM (SELECT
`Extent2`.`id`, 
`Extent2`.`sender_id`, 
`Extent2`.`receiver_id`, 
`Extent2`.`content`, 
`Extent2`.`created_at`,
`Extent2`.`read_status`
FROM `messages` AS `Extent2`
 WHERE (`Extent1`.`receiver_id` = `Extent2`.`receiver_id`) OR ((`Extent1`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL) AND (`Extent2`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL))) AS `Project2` LIMIT 1) AS `RECEIVER_ID1`, 
(SELECT
`Project2`.`receivable_type`
FROM (SELECT
`Extent2`.`id`, 
`Extent2`.`sender_id`, 
`Extent2`.`receiver_id`, 
`Extent2`.`content`, 
`Extent2`.`created_at`,  
`Extent2`.`read_status`
 WHERE (`Extent1`.`receiver_id` = `Extent2`.`receiver_id`) OR ((`Extent1`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL) AND (`Extent2`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL))) AS `Project2` LIMIT 1) AS `content`, 
(SELECT
`Project2`.`created_at`
FROM (SELECT
`Extent2`.`id`, 
`Extent2`.`sender_id`, 
`Extent2`.`receiver_id`,  
`Extent2`.`content`, 
`Extent2`.`created_at`, 
`Extent2`.`read_status`
FROM `messages` AS `Extent2`
 WHERE (`Extent1`.`receiver_id` = `Extent2`.`receiver_id`) OR ((`Extent1`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL) AND (`Extent2`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL))) AS `Project2` LIMIT 1) AS `created_at`, 
(SELECT
`Project2`.`updated_at`
FROM (SELECT
`Extent2`.`id`, 
`Extent2`.`sender_id`, 
`Extent2`.`receiver_id`, 
`Extent2`.`content`, 
`Extent2`.`created_at`, 
`Extent2`.`read_status`
FROM `messages` AS `Extent2`
 WHERE (`Extent1`.`receiver_id` = `Extent2`.`receiver_id`) OR ((`Extent1`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL) AND (`Extent2`.`receiver_id` IS  NULL))) AS `Project2` LIMIT 1) AS `read_status`
FROM (SELECT DISTINCT 
`Extent1`.`receiver_id`
FROM `messages` AS `Extent1`) AS `Distinct1`) AS `Apply1` LEFT OUTER JOIN `users` AS `Extent3` ON `Apply1`.`sender_id` = `Extent3`.`id`}

Answer 1

You don't need the SqlQuery construct to do the ordering before the grouping:

var refGroupQuery = from m in dbContext.Messages
     group m by m.receiver_id into refGroup
     let firstItem = refGroup.OrderByDescending(x => x.created_at)
                             .FirstOrDefault()
     select new MessageDTO { 
                              id = firstItem.id, 
                              content = firstItem.content,
                              sender_email = firstItem.sender.email
                           };

This does the same, but it translates the whole statement into SQL, which has two advantages

• sender is not lazy loaded for each message
• sender.email does not crash when sender is null, because in SQL there is no null object reference. The whole expression (sender.email) just returns null.