Projection & Shaping
Projection allows you to control exactly which fields are returned from your API, reducing payload size and improving performance.
Select
Use the select parameter to list the fields you want to retrieve.
?select=id,name,email
Aliases (as)
You can rename properties in the output dynamic object using the as keyword.
?select=id as customerId, name, emailAddress as contactEmail
Aliases work at any level of nesting: ?select=id,orders.status as orderStatus,orders.orderItems.productName as product
Include (Eager Loading)
While select creates a new dynamic object, include is used to expand related navigation properties while keeping the original entity structure.
?include=orders,profile
Filtered Includes
FlexQuery.NET allows you to filter the related collections that are being included. This is part of the Dual-Pipeline system.
?include=orders(status = 'Shipped')
You can chain includes and even filter at multiple levels: ?include=orders(total > 100).orderItems(sku = 'SKU-001')
Exclusive Selection
If you provide a specific select path for a navigation, the library will only project those fields for that navigation, overriding the default behavior of including all scalar properties.
Query:?include=orders&select=id,orders.number
Result: The orders collection will contain objects having only id and number properties.
Merged Projection Mode
When using ApplySelect or ToProjectedQueryResultAsync, the library automatically merges Filtered Includes and Select into a single optimized Select() expression tree. This ensures:
- Only requested columns are fetched from the database.
- Related data is filtered at the database level.
- The final result is a clean, minimal anonymous object structure.