I don’t know to what extent what I have in mind will be done. But I’ll try my luck to find someone here who can explain it to me.

I have following method in my DB repository:

public async Task<IList<BroadcastEntryEntity>> GetByPeriodOfTimeOfProgramAsync(Guid programId, DateTime dateTimeStartUtc,
                                                                               DateTime dateTimeEndUtc, bool includePrograms = false,
                                                                               bool includePlayouts = false, bool includeRecords = false)
{
    return await Set.Include(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.Program)
                    .Include(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.PlayoutInstance)
                    .Include(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.Record)
                    .ThenInclude(record => record.ContentTags)
                    .Include(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.Record)
                    .ThenInclude(record => record.ExternalIds)
                    .Where(item => item.ProgramId == programId &&
                                   item.BroadcastDateTimeUtcStart >= dateTimeStartUtc &&
                                   item.BroadcastDateTimeUtcEnd <= dateTimeEndUtc)
                    .OrderBy(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.BroadcastDateTimeUtcStart)
                    .ToListAsync();
}

This works great so far. I’m just wondering how I could optionally exclude the includes using the method parameters: includePrograms, includePlayouts, includeRecords?

Is it possible to do something like what the example here suggests (I know it can’t work like that):

public async Task<IList<BroadcastEntryEntity>> GetByPeriodOfTimeOfProgramAsync(Guid programId, DateTime dateTimeStartUtc,
                                                                               DateTime dateTimeEndUtc, bool includePrograms = false,
                                                                               bool includePlayouts = false, bool includeRecords = false)
{
    if (includePrograms){
        // Include the programs
        var programInclude = Set.Include(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.Program)
    }

    if (includePlayouts){
        // Include the playout instances
        var playoutInclude = Set.Include(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.PlayoutInstances)
    }

    if (includeRecords){
        // Include the records
        var recordInclude = Set.Include(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.Record)
                    .ThenInclude(record => record.ContentTags)
                    .Include(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.Record)
                    .ThenInclude(record => record.ExternalIds)
    }

    return await Set.Where(item => item.ProgramId == programId &&
                                   item.BroadcastDateTimeUtcStart >= dateTimeStartUtc &&
                                   item.BroadcastDateTimeUtcEnd <= dateTimeEndUtc)
                    .OrderBy(broadcastEntry => broadcastEntry.BroadcastDateTimeUtcStart)
                    .ToListAsync();
}

Or am I on the wrong track here and do something like this completely differently?

I would be very grateful for any advice here.