Metadata API - ASP.NET Dynamic Data - page 213

The MetaChildrenColumn Class
The MetaChildrenColumn class is another specialized descendant of the MetaColumn class
that represents one-to-many and many-to-many navigation properties. In one-to-many
relationships, MetaChildrenColumn is the opposite of the MetaForeignKeyColumn . For
example, the Supplier entity of the Northwind data model has a one-to-many property
called Products, which returns all products a particular supplier offers.
public MetaTable ChildTable { get; }
The ChildTable property of the MetaChildrenColumn class returns a MetaTable object
describing the child entity referenced by the navigation property. For the Products prop-
erty of the Supplier entity, the child entity is Product and the ChildTable property of the
MetaChildrenColumn object would return the Products MetaTable .
public bool IsManyToMany { get; }
The IsManyToMany property returns true if the column represents a many-to-many rela-
tionship and false if the relationship is one-to-many. In the Northwind data model,
the Employee entity has a many-to-many relationship with Territory, and the
MetaChildrenColumn instance describing the Territories column has the IsManyToMany
property set to true .
NOTE
LINQ to SQL does not support many-to-many associations natively. The IsManyToMany
property is always false for columns describing LINQ to SQL data models.
public MetaColumn ColumnInOtherTable { get; }
The ColumnInOtherTable property of the MetaChildrenColumn class returns a MetaColumn
object that represents the opposite end of the association. For the Products property of the
Supplier entity, this property returns a MetaColumn that represents the Supplier property
of the Product entity.
This property can return a MetaForeignKeyColumn object if the children column represents
a one-to-many navigation property, such as the Products property of the Supplier entity,
whose counterpart is the Supplier property of the Product entity. It can also return a
MetaChildrenColumn object if the children column represents a many-to-many navigation
property, such as the Territories property of the Employee entity, whose counterpart is
the Employees property of the Territory entity. This property can also return null if the
navigation property represents a one-way association, or in other words, when the chil-
dren navigation property doesn't have a counterpart on the other side.
public string GetChildrenPath(string action, object row);
public string GetChildrenPath(string action, object row, string path);