How can I do to call a unique SaveChanges to affect all changes in all repositories that I use?
Should I create a class that contains all repositories and a Save method?
What's the best way to do it?
I'm trying this:
public ActionResult Create()
{
Product Product = new Product() { Id = 1, Name = "test", Amount = 1 };
if (_productService.Insert(Product))
{
context.SaveChanges();
return View();
}
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
Is this correct?
The best way is called unit of work and it is generally wrapper class to your EF context which is passed to constructor of your repositories. You than call Save on this new class.
Pass IDbContext/ObjectContext to constructor of your repositories. Work with repositories and call Save on context not on repository.
I would also rethink if You need repositories at all.
Related
DISCLAIMER: Since we are all familiar with it, i will be using contoso university design to explain my question. Also, i am using EF core and .net core 2.0 on a mvc code first design.
I am developing a very generic RESTful API that works on any model. It has one method for each of create, read, update and delete operation in only one controller, the route of this is
[Route("/api/{resource}")]
Resource is the entity that the client wants to work with, for example if someone wants to get all Courses using the api he has to do a GET request on http://www.example.com/api/course/ or http://www.example.com/api/course/2 to get one by id and the following code will do the job.
[HttpGet("{id:int:min(1)?}")]
public IActionResult Read([FromRoute] string resource, [FromRoute] int? id)
{
//find resourse in models
IEntityType entityType = _context.Model
.GetEntityTypes()
.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Name.EndsWith($".{resource}", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase));
if (entityType == null) return NotFound(resource);
Type type = entityType.ClrType;
if (id == null)//select all from table
{
var entityRows = context.GetType().GetMethod("Set").MakeGenericMethod(type).Invoke(context, null);
if (entityRows == null)
return NoContent();
//TODO: load references (1)
return Ok(entityRows);
}
else //select by id
{
var entityRow = _context.Find(type, id);
if (entityRow == null)
return NoContent();
//TODO: load references (2)
return Ok(entityRows);
}
}
This small piece of code will do the magic with one small exception, intermediate collections will not be loaded. Given our example, the fetched course or courses will have no info for CourseInstructor (the intermediate collection in between Course and Person). I am trying to find a way to Eager load the navigation properties only if it is a collection; or by any other condition that will ensure that only many-to-many relationships are loaded.
For //TODO: load reference (2) i could use
_context.Entry(entityRow).Collection("CourseInsructor").Load();
On runtime if i could find all the navigation properties (filtered by spoken condition) and foreach of them i did Load(), i should get the desired result. My problem is when i get all (when id is null) the entityRows is type 'InternalDbSet' which is an unknown model.
So for the two TODOs i need some help on doing the following steps
1: find navigation properties of many-to-many relationships only
2: load them
Any suggestions?
In general, this seems like a very bad idea to me. While the CRUD stuff is going to be identical for most resources, there will be variances (as you've now run into). There's also something to be said for having a self-documenting API: with individual controllers, you know which resources can be accessed by nature of having a controller associated with that resource. With they way you're doing it, it's a complete black box. This also will of course effect any sort of actual generated API documentation. For example, if you were to include Swagger in your project, it would not be able to determine what you're doing here. Finally, you're now having to use reflection for everything, which will effect your performance.
What I would suggest instead is creating a base abstract controller and then creating a controller for each unique resource that inherits from that, for example:
public abstract class BaseController<TEntity> : Controller
where TEntity : class, new()
{
protected readonly MyContext _context;
public BaseController(MyContext context)
{
_context = context ?? throw new ArgumentNullException(nameof(context));
}
...
[HttpGet("create")]
public IActionResult Create()
{
var model = new TEntity();
return View(model);
}
[HttpPost("create")]
public async Task<IActionResult> Create(TEntity model)
{
if (ModelState.IsValid)
{
_context.Add(model);
await _context.SaveChangesAsync();
return RedirectToAction("Index");
}
return View(model);
}
...
}
I just wanted to give a quick example, but you'd build out all the rest of the CRUD methods in the same fashion, generically using TEntity. Then, for each actual resource, you simply do:
public class WidgetController : BaseController<Widget>
{
public WidgetController(MyContext context)
: base(context)
{
}
}
No duplication of code, but you've now got an actual real controller backing the resource, aiding both the innate and possibly explicit documentation of your API. And, no reflection anywhere.
Then, to solve problems like what you have here, you can add hooks to your base controller: essentially just virtual methods that are utilized in your base controller's CRUD actions and do nothing or just default things. However, you can then override these in your derived controllers to stub in additional functionality. For example, you can add something like:
public virtual IQueryable<TEntity> GetQueryable()
=> _context.Set<TEntity>();
Then, in your derived controller, you can do something like:
public class CourseController : BaseController<Course>
{
...
public override IQueryable<Course> GetQueryable()
=> base.GetQueryable().Include(x => x.CourseInstructors).ThenInclude(x => x.Instructor);
So, for example, you'd make your BaseController.Index action, perhaps, utilize GetQueryable() to get the list of entities to display. Simply by overriding this on the derived class, you can alter what happens based on the context of a particular type of resource.
Is there a way to get all objects which are currently attached in the entity manager?
I want to write some monitoring code which will report the number of attached objects and their classes.
Meaning finding all objects which were loaded by previous queries and find operations into the entity manager.
I'm using EclipseLink, so a specific solution is good too.
EclipseLink's JPA interface pretty much wraps its native code such that an EntityManager uses a UnitOfWork session underneath (and the EMF wraps a ServerSession). You need to get at the UnitOfWork if you want to see what entities it is managing.
If using JPA 2.0, you can use the EntityManager unwrap method:
UnitOfWork uow = em.unwrap(UnitOfWork.class);
otherwise, use some casting
UnitOfWork uow = ((EntityManagerImpl)em).getUnitOfWork();
From there, the UnitOfWork has a list of all registered (aka managed) entities. You can use the UOW to directly log what it has using the printRegisteredObjects() method, or obtain it yourself using getCloneMapping().keySet().
You can also see deleted objects by using hasDeletedObjects() and then getDeletedObjects().keySet() if there are any, as and the same for new objects using hasNewObjectsInParentOriginalToClone() and getNewObjectsCloneToOriginal().keySet()
you can use JPA in a lot of ways i am still unaware of, and there is a lot going on under the hood in eclipselink that i still do not fully understand, but it looks like it is possible to see into the persistence context. USE THIS CODE AT YOUR OWN RISK. it is only meant to give you a hint that it is possible to inspect the context. (whether the code is right or wrong i'm posting it because it would have helped me when i was trying to decide whether to use eclipselink. there doesn't seem to be much in the way of documentation about how to do this properly.)
public void saveChanges() {
Date now = new Date();
JpaEntityManager jem = em.unwrap(JpaEntityManager.class);
UnitOfWorkImpl uow = jem.unwrap(UnitOfWorkImpl.class);
// inserts
for (Object entity : uow.getNewObjectsCloneToOriginal().keySet()) {
if (entity instanceof IAuditedEntity) {
IAuditedEntity auditedEntity = (IAuditedEntity) entity;
auditedEntity.setAuditedUserId(this.userId);
auditedEntity.setAuditedAt(now);
auditedEntity.setCreatedAt(now);
}
}
// updates
UnitOfWorkChangeSet uowChangeSet = (UnitOfWorkChangeSet) uow.getUnitOfWorkChangeSet();
if (uowChangeSet != null) {
List<IAuditedEntity> toUpdate = new ArrayList<>();
for(Entry<Object, ObjectChangeSet> entry : uowChangeSet.getCloneToObjectChangeSet().entrySet()) {
if (entry.getValue().hasChanges()) {
if (entry.getKey() instanceof IAuditedEntity) {
toUpdate.add((IAuditedEntity) entry.getKey());
}
}
}
for (IAuditedEntity auditedEntity : toUpdate) {
auditedEntity.setAuditedUserId(this.userId);
auditedEntity.setAuditedAt(now);
}
}
// deletions
Project jpaProject = uow.getProject();
boolean anyAuditedDeletions = false;
for (Object entity : uow.getDeletedObjects().keySet()) {
if (entity instanceof IAuditedEntity) {
anyAuditedDeletions = true;
DeletedEntity deletion = new DeletedEntity();
deletion.setTableName(jpaProject.getClassDescriptor(entity.getClass()).getTableName());
deletion.setEntityId(((IAuditedEntity) entity).getId());
deletion.setAuditedUserId(this.userId);
em.persist(deletion);
}
}
}
You can achieve this by inspecting the entities on MetaModel which can be obtained from any EntityManager.
Example usage:
EntityManager em = // get your EM however...
for(EntityType<?> entityType : em.getMetaModel().getEntities())
{
Class<?> managedClass = entityType.getBindableJavaType();
System.out.println("Managing type: " + managedClass.getCanonicalName());
}
This example will print out all of the class types being managed by the EntityManager. To get all of the actual objects being managed, simply query all objects of that type on the EntityManager.
Update:
As of JPA 2.0 you can cache results that will be managed by javax.persistence.Cache. However, with plain JPA there is no way to actually retrieve the objects stored in the cache, the best you can do is check if a certain object is in the Cache via Cache.contains(Class cls, Object pk):
em.getEntityManagerFactory().getCache().contains(MyData.class, somePK);
However, EclipseLink extends Cache with JpaCache. You can use this to actually get the object from the cache via JpaCache.getObject(Class cls, Object id). This doesn't return a collection or anything, but it's the next best thing.
Unfortunately, if you want to actually access objects in the cache, you will need to manage this yourself.
I dont see such an option in the EntityManager interface. There is only a contains(Object entity) method but you need to pass the conrete objects and they are the checked for existentnce in the PersistenceContext. Also looking at the PersistenceContext interface i dont see such an option.
I'm using entity framework with POCOs and the repository pattern and am wondering if there is any way to filter a child list lazy load. Example:
class Person
{
public virtual Organisation organisation {set; get;}
}
class Organisation
{
public virtual ICollection<Product> products {set; get;}
}
class Product
{
public bool active {set; get;}
}
Currently I only have a person repository because I'm always starting from that point, so ideally I would like to do the following:
Person person = personRepo.GetById(Id);
var products = person.organisation.products;
And have it only load products where active = true from the database.
Is this possible and if so how?
EDIT My best guess would be either a filter can be added to the configuration of the entity. Or there might be a way to intercept/override the lazy load call and modify it. Obviously if I created an Organisation Repository I could manually load it as I please but I am trying to avoid that.
There's not a direct way to do this via lazy loading, but if you were willing to explicitly load the collection, you could follow whats in this blog, see the Applying filters when explicitly loading related entities section.
context.Entry(person)
.Collection(p => p.organisation.products)
.Query()
.Where(u => u.IsActive)
.Load();
You can do what Mark Oreta and luksan suggest while keeping all the query logic within the repository.
All you have to do is pass a Lazy<ICollection<Product>> into the organization constructor, and use the logic they provided. It will not evaluate until you access the value property of the lazy instance.
UPDATE
/*
First, here are your changes to the Organisation class:
Add a constructor dependency on the delegate to load the products to your
organization class. You will create this object in the repository method
and assign it to the Person.Organization property
*/
public class Organisation
{
private readonly Lazy<ICollection<Product>> lazyProducts;
public Organisation(Func<ICollection<Product>> loadProducts){
this.lazyProducts = new Lazy<ICollection<Product>>(loadProducts);
}
// The underlying lazy field will not invoke the load delegate until this property is accessed
public virtual ICollection<Product> Products { get { return this.lazyProducts.Value; } }
}
Now, in your repository method, when you construct the Person object you will assign the Organisation property with an Organisation object containing the lazy loading field.
So, without seeing your whole model, it will looks something like
public Person GetById(int id){
var person = context.People.Single(p => p.Id == id);
/* Now, I'm not sure about the cardinality of the person-organization or organisation
product relationships, but let's assume you have some way to access the PK of the
organization record from the Person and that the Product has a reference to
its Organisation. I may be misinterpreting your model, but hopefully you
will get the idea
*/
var organisationId = /* insert the aforementioned magic here */
Func<ICollection<Product>> loadProducts = () => context.Products.Where(product => product.IsActive && product.OrganisationId == organisationId).ToList();
person.Organisation = new Organisation( loadProducts );
return person;
}
By using this approach, the query for the products will not be loaded until you access the Products property on the Organisationinstance, and you can keep all your logic in the repository. There's a good chance that I made incorrect assumptions about your model (as the sample code is quite incomplete), but I think there is enough here for you to see how to use the pattern. Let me know if any of this is unclear.
This might be related:
Using CreateSourceQuery in CTP4 Code First
If you were to redefine your properties as ICollection<T> rather than IList<T> and enable change-tracking proxies, then you might be able to cast them to EntityCollection<T> and then call CreateSourceQuery() which would allow you to execute LINQ to Entities queries against them.
Example:
var productsCollection = (EntityCollection<Product>)person.organisation.products;
var productsQuery = productsCollection.CreateSourceQuery();
var activeProducts = products.Where(p => p.Active);
Is your repository using something like:
IQueryable<T> Find(System.Linq.Expressions.Expression<Func<T, bool>> expression)
If so you can do something like this:
var person = personRepo.Find(p => p.organisation.products.Any(e => e.active)).FirstOrDefault();
You could possibly use Query() method to achieve this. Something like:
context.Entry(person)
.Collection(p => p.organisation.products)
.Query()
.Where(pro=> pro.Active==true)
.Load();
Have a look at this page click here
I am learning EF4.1 in conjunction with MVVM and in one of these tutorials they create a MainWindowViewModel with a Repository object that they use in calling another view model (EmployeeListViewModel). Here is the code:
public MainWindowViewModel()
{
IObjectContextAdapter adapter = ((IObjectContextAdapter)new SidekickEntities());
_vmRepository = new GenericRepository(adapter.ObjectContext);
EmployeeListViewModel viewModel = new EmployeeListViewModel(_vmRepository);
this.ViewModels.Add(viewModel);
}
public EmployeeListViewModel(GenericRepository repository)
{
if (repository == null)
{
throw new ArgumentNullException("repository");
}
_employeeRepository = repository;
this.AllEmployees = new ObservableCollection<Employee>(_employeeRepository.GetAll<Employee>());
}
What I am wondering is, why is the repository created in the MainWindowViewModel and then passed into EmployeeListViewModel? Why not just create the repository in EmployeeListViewModel like this:
public MainWindowViewModel()
{
EmployeeListViewModel viewModel = new EmployeeListViewModel();
this.ViewModels.Add(viewModel);
}
public EmployeeListViewModel()
{
IObjectContextAdapter adapter = ((IObjectContextAdapter)new SidekickEntities());
_employeeRepository = new GenericRepository(adapter.ObjectContext);
this.AllEmployees = new ObservableCollection<Employee>(_employeeRepository.GetAll<Employee>());
}
I am pretty new to EF but it seems a little cleaner to create a repository in each separate ViewModel. Wouldn't the repository then be cleaned up when the ViewModel in question is no longer used instead of keeping it around until the closing of MainWindowViewModel or does this create too many repository instances?
The problem you will run into when using a separate Context for each ViewModel is that entities that have links to each other come from different contexts so you will have to manually work this out when trying to update something (see Attaching and Detaching Objects)
This has to do with a pattern called Unit Of Work.
UoW helps you with encapsulating functions that should work together. In your case the ObjectContext implements the UoW pattern and is passed to the repository in the constructor.
You should share your ObjectContext between functions that work together and should be seen as one Unit Of Work.
Could anyone advise me on how they've implemented the use of Function Imports when using the Repository pattern against EF 4.0?
We have a table mapped to a Candidate Entity and also a Function Import off an existing sproc that maps to Candidate. This works great in EF but we're abstracting by use of Repositories which take on their constructor the IObjectSet where T is the POCO entity. However this means I'm unable to get a reference to the function import. The only way I can see of doing this is passing a reference to the ObjectContext to the repositories that need it but this feels like a bit of a design smell to me.
Even though several of our Repositories are extended with custom interfaces we're still faced with the same issue.
public class CandidateRepository : Repository<Candidate>, ICandidateRepository
{
public CandidateRepository(IObjectSet<Candidate> entities)
: base(entities)
{
}
public Candidate GetByEmail(string email)
{
return Entities.SingleOrDefault(c => c.EmailAddress.Equals(email));
}
public bool CandidateExists(string candidateNumber)
{
return Entities.SingleOrDefault(c => c.Number.Equals(candidateNumber)) != null;
}
public Candidate GetByNumber(string number)
{
return Entities.SingleOrDefault(c => c.Number.Equals(number));
}
public Candidate GetMember(string number)
{
return new Candidate(); //This one needs to return from the Function Import
}
}
Any advice greatly appreciated.
To solve your problem directly you can cast entities to ObjectSet<T> and use entites.Context property to get ObjectContext.
public Candidate GetMember(string number)
{
var objectSet = Enities as ObjectSet<Candidate>;
if(objectSet == null) throw new Exception("Oh, it's not EF IObjectSet implementation");
return objectSet.Context.MyCustomFunction(string number);
}
As you can see this code relies on specific IObjectSet implementation which is not good at all.
The better idea is to create repositories for aggregate roots only rather then for each table. So it will be more natural to pass ObjectContext to repository ctor.
I have went down this route and i have experienced that it is less of a pain when you pass in an interface implementation of the ObjectContext to your repository. The interface implementation should have some way of calling the function. So when you pass in the concrete implementation of the ObjectContext everything should work fine.