Orc.EntityFramework

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Find the source at https://github.com/WildGums/Orc.EntityFramework5.

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Stable version
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Find the source at https://github.com/WildGums/Orc.EntityFramework6.

Introduction

This library contains services to work with EntityFramework using repositories and Unit of Work (UoW).

Context

Creating the code-first models

Create a new context with code-first models right-clicking on the solution => Add => New item… Then search for ADO.NET Entity Data Model and give it a name and follow the wizard.

Customizing the code-first models

By default the code-first models aren’t very smart. To add additional functionality such as validation, change notifications, etc, it is best to let it derive from ModelBase. To do so, make all entities derive from ModelBase as shown in the example below:

[Table("person")]
public partial class Person : ModelBase
{
	[StringLength(50)]
	public string FirstName { get; set; }
 
	[StringLength(50)]
	public string lastname { get; set; }
 
	public long PersonId { get; set; }
	public long FamilyId { get; set; }
 
	public virtual Family Family { get; set; }
}

When the classes are derived from ModelBase, EF will try to serialize all the default Catel properties as well. To make sure that EF ignores the Catel properties, go to the Context class and search for the OnModelCreating method. Then add the IgnoreCatelProperties extension method to all entity definitions as shown in the example below:

protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
{
	modelBuilder.Entity<Family>()
		.IgnoreCatelProperties()
		.Property(e => e.FamilyName)
		.IsUnicode(false);
 
	modelBuilder.Entity<Family>()
		.HasMany(e => e.Person)
		.WithRequired(e => e.Family)
		.WillCascadeOnDelete(false);
}

Repositories

Creating repositories

Once the DAL is correctly set up, it’s time to create the repositories. Creating repositories with Catel is super easy. Just create (or generate with T4) a class and interface for each entity:

public class FamilyRepository : EntityRepositoryBase<family, int>, IFamilyRepository
{
	public FamilyRepository(DbContext dbContext) 
		: base(dbContext)
	{
	}
}
 
public interface IFamilyRepository : IEntityRepository<family, int>
{
}

Registering repositories

In order for the unit of work to find the repositories, they need to be registered in the ServiceLocator. This can be done as follows:

var serviceLocator = ServiceLocator.Default;
 
serviceLocator.RegisterType<IFamilyRepository, FamilyRepository>();

Unit of Work

Retrieving data

To retrieve data inside a transaction, you can use the UnitOfWork. Inside a method / service call / view model, use the following code:

using (var uow = new UnitOfWork<FamilyContext>())
{
	var familyRepository = uow.GetRepository<IFamilyRepository>();
 
	var families = new ObservableCollection<family>(familyRepository.GetAll());
	// TODO: Do something with all families
}

Saving data

To save data, the entities must be updated in the repositories and then saved in the unit of work. Below is an example, assuming the list of families contains updated entities:

using (var uow = new UnitOfWork<FamilyContext>())
{
	var familyRepository = uow.GetRepository<IFamilyRepository>();
	var personRepository = uow.GetRepository<IPersonRepository>();

	foreach (var family in families)
	{
		familyRepository.Update(family);
	}

	uow.SaveChanges();
}

Contributions

We would like to thank the following contributors:

Want to contribute to the documentation? We have a guide for that!

Questions

Have a question about Catel or WildGums controls? Use StackOverflow with the Catel tag!