Joining tables in EF Core Linq Query

Question

I'm currently trying to make a Web Api with EF Core, and i'm running into some problems joining the tables i've got together. I'm working with the following Database Diagram:

And the data i'm currently getting back from my API looks this this:

[  
   {  
      "postId":1,
      "postDate":"2018-10-21T21:56:43.9838536",
      "content":"First entry in posts!",
      "user":{  
         "userId":1,
         "creationDate":"2018-10-21T21:56:36.3539549",
         "name":"Hansel"
      },
      "comments":[  
         {  
            "commentId":1,
            "postDate":"0001-01-01T00:00:00",
            "content":"Nice!",
            "user":null
         },
         {  
            "commentId":2,
            "postDate":"0001-01-01T00:00:00",
            "content":"Cool, here's another comment",
            "user":null
         },
         {  
            "commentId":3,
            "postDate":"0001-01-01T00:00:00",
            "content":"and the last one for the night",
            "user":null
         }
      ]
   },
   {  
      "postId":2,
      "postDate":"2018-10-22T21:56:44.0650102",
      "content":"Its good to see that its working!",
      "user":{  
         "userId":2,
         "creationDate":"2018-10-16T21:56:36.4585213",
         "name":"Chris"
      },
      "comments":[  

      ]
   }
]

As you can see, its aalmost working, my issue here is the null values in the comments, i want to be able to get the users out as well. But for some reason i cant.

my current query looks like this (i'm using DTO's to clean up the JSON generated):

var result = from post in context.Posts
                join user in context.Users 
                on post.User.UserId equals user.UserId
                join comment in context.Comments                            
                on post.PostId equals comment.Post.PostId into comments
                select new PostDTO
                {
                    Content = post.Content,
                    PostDate = post.PostDate,
                    User = UserDTO.UserToDTO(user),
                    Comments = CommentDTO.CommentToDTO(comments.ToList()),
                    PostId = post.PostId
                };

If i was working with SQL i'd join the users onto 'comments', but i cant, so i've tried a similar-ish solution, which i thought would work.

var result = from post in context.Posts
                join user in context.Users on post.User.UserId equals user.UserId
                join comment in 
                    (from u in context.Users
                    join c in context.Comments
                    on u.UserId equals c.User.UserId select c)
                on post.PostId equals comment.Post.PostId into comments
                select new PostDTO
                {
                    Content = post.Content,
                    PostDate = post.PostDate,
                    User = UserDTO.UserToDTO(user),
                    Comments = CommentDTO.CommentToDTO(comments.ToList()),
                    PostId = post.PostId
                };

However, while this query does execute the results are the same as the first query i wrote, the issue being that user isnt joined onto comment

TLDR; I can join User to post, and comment to post, but i cant bind user to comment

I hope you will be able to help me, thanks in advance :)

Edit: Here's my models

public class Comment
{
    public int CommentId { get; set; }
    public DateTime PostDate { get; set; }
    public string Content { get; set; }

    public User User { get; set; }

    public Post Post { get; set; }
}

  public class User
    {
        public int UserId { get; set; }
        public DateTime CreationDate { get; set; }
        public string Name{ get; set; }

        public ICollection<Post> Posts { get; set; }
        public ICollection<Comment> Comments { get; set; }
    }

public class Post
{
    public int PostId { get; set; }
    public DateTime PostDate { get; set; }
    public string Content { get; set; }
    public User User { get; set; }

    public ICollection<Comment> Comments { get; set; }
}

Answer 1

To get the posts with comments (and every comment's user) and post users, simply use .Include()

var res = this._dbContext.Posts
        .Include(p => p.User)
        .Include(p => p.Comments)
            .ThenInclude(c => c.User)
        .ToList();

If you don't like to introduce a 3rd party lib such as AutoMapper, you can create a convertPostToDto function and use .

res.Select(p => convertPostToDto(p))

to convert the res to the result