title: WebAPI ODATA without Entity Framework
body: <p>Consider the following method in a Web Api controller:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[Queryable(AllowedQueryOptions= AllowedQueryOptions.All)]
  public override IQueryable&lt;Mandate&gt; Get()
  {
          return new List&lt;Mandate&gt;() { new Mandate() { 
              Id = 1, 
              PolicyNumber = "350000000",
              OpenPositions = new List&lt;OpenPosition&gt;(){ 
                  new OpenPosition(){ Id = 1, Amount =2300 },
                  new OpenPosition(){ Id = 2, Amount =2100 }
              }},
              new Mandate() { 
                  Id = 2, 
                  PolicyNumber = "240000000" ,
                  OpenPositions = new List&lt;OpenPosition&gt;(){ 
                  new OpenPosition(){ Id = 3, Amount =2500 },
                  new OpenPosition(){ Id = 2, Amount =2100 }
              }
  
              } }.AsQueryable&lt;Mandate&gt;();
      }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here the list is built manually and if I browse to the following url:</p>
  
  <p><code>http://localhost:52446/odata/Mandates?$filter=Id eq 1</code> it returns the correct item from the list.</p>
  
  <p>Now obviously the list is more likely to be a database structure. Data would be retrieved using some ORM and returned to the Web API service.</p>
  
  <p>I don't use Entity Framework (and I can't because of legacy systems). </p>
  
  <p>How would I use Web API in this case? How would I translate the url parameters so that the filters are applied by the layer responsible of the data access? </p>