SEHS4701 Advanced Information Systems

Development

ASP.NET Core and Web API

with
Entity Framework

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 ASP.NET Core Web API

• Web API:
– Helps create REST-style APIs
– Enables external systems to use the business logics
implemented in your application
– Uses URLs in requests and helps obtain results in
the JSON format
– Is ideal for mobile application integration

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 ASP.NET Core Web API

Characteristics of a RESTful Service:

– Can be called to retrieve business information from the
server
– Can create, update, and delete information in a database
through HTTP operations
– Uses URLs to uniquely identify the entity that it operates on
– Uses HTTP verbs to identify the operation that the
application needs to perform. The HTTP verbs include:
• GET
• POST
• PUT
• DELETE
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 ASP.NET Core Web API

Characteristics of routing in Web API:

• You can use API controller names and a naming
convention for actions to route Web API requests
• Alternatively you can use the following attributes to
control the mapping of HTTP requests (HTTP
Verb+URL) to actions in the controller:
– The HttpGet, HttpPut, HttpPost, or HttpDelete attributes
– The AcceptVerbs attribute
– The ActionName attribute

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 ASP.NET Core Web API

Data Return Formats

• Web API can return data in JSON or XML
formats
• Web API uses the media formatter to:
– Format or serialize the information that a Web API
REST service returns
– Control the media type in the HTTP header
– Format all content that the server renders to client
systems
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 ASP.NET Core Web API

• Asp.Net Core provides a framework for building and

executing both Console and Web Applications
• The framework provides a host, responsible for startup
and lifetime management.
– Generic Host – host non-web apps
• Windows services and executables
– Web Host – suitable for hosting web applications
• Create instance with IWebHostBuilder
– Primary focus is web applications
– It provides a pluggable hosting environment that supports:
• Kestral, IIS, Apache, Nginx

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 ASP.NET Core Web API

Web Application Hosting Options

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 ASP.NET Core Web API

Asp.Net Core Pipeline

• Provides an application pipeline that supports pluggable
services
• Pipeline services are delivered via a Dependency
Injection Container
• The pipeline is configured with one or more components.

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 ASP.NET Core Web API

Middleware
• Middleware is software that's assembled into an app
pipeline to handle requests and responses. Each
component:
– Chooses whether to pass the request to the next component in
the pipeline.
– Can perform work before and after the next component in the
pipeline.
• Request delegates are used to build the request
pipeline. The request delegates handle each HTTP
request.
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 ASP.NET Core Web API
Configuring Middleware
• You configure pipeline middleware using the Configure method,
provided by the Startup class.
– Services include:
• Serving static files
• MVC routing and operations
• Custom services
– Service lifetime:
• AddSingletonService<IService, Service>()
Singleton service used for the lifetime of the Application
• AddScopedService<IService, Service>()
Singleton service used for the duration of one HTTP request
• AddTransientService<IService, Service>()
Created with each request for service, possibly many times per HTTP request

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 ASP.NET Core Web API

Middleware provided by the framework - partial list

• Authentications
• Cookie Policy
• CORS
• Diagnostics
• HTTPS Redirection
• MVC
• Routing
• Session
• Static Files
• URL Rewriting
• WebSocket

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 ASP.NET Core Web API

Startup
– ConfigureServices method
• Registers a service interface and implementing class for dependency injection
using one of the AddService methods, described in the previous slide
• Each AddService adds a service to the Dependency Injection Services
container.
– Configure method
• Creates the application’s pipeline with app.UseXXX() invocations.
• app.Run( some write method )
• An app.UseXXX invocation need not pass a message down the pipeline.
• App.Run executes only if all app.UseXXX() middleware pass along the
request message.
• Essentially, the pipeline is the sequence of app.UseXXX() methods in
StartupConfigure()

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 Entity Framework

• Entity Framework is an open source ORM

framework for .NET applications.

• An ORM manages details between set of objects and the underlying relational
database.

• Alternatively traditional ADO.NET classes can be used:

• SqlConnection
• SqlCommand
• SqlDataReader
• SqlDataAdapter

• However, Entity Framework can handle all data related interactions between
the application and the database.
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 Entity Framework in an application
Entity Framework in an application

User Interface

Business Layer

Persistence
Framework
(Entity Framework)

Database

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 Entity Framework Workflows

Database First Code First Model First

• Allows reverse • Allows creating and • Create an UML diagram

engineering a model updating of database using a Visual Designer
from existing tables based on domain and then let the
database classes. workflow generate the
• EF generates domain • EF generates database database.
classes. tables.

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 Entity Framework Architecture

• EDM (Entity Data Model) :

• Storage Model : Includes tables, views, stored procedures, relationships and keys.
• Conceptual Model : Contains model classes and their representation.
• Mapping Model: Information about how conceptual model is mapped to the storage model.

• LINQ to Entities: Used to write queries against the object model. Returns entities
defined in the conceptual model.
• Entity SQL: It is a storage independent query language.
• Object Services: Main entry point for accessing data from the database and returning it
back.
• Entity Client Data Provider:
• Communicates with the ADO.NET data provider.
• Converts LINQ-to-Entities or Entity SQL to SQL query.
• ADO.NET Data Provider: Communicates with the database using ADO.NET.

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 Entity Framework Architecture

LINQ to Entity
EDM Entities SQL

Conceptual Model Object Services

Mapping Entity Client Data Provider

Storage Model ADO.NET Data Provider

Database

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 Database First

Database Context and

Entity Framework
Entity classes

Database-First Approach
Generate Domain Classes based on the database

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 Database First

Edmx Designer Representation

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 Dealing with Database Changes

• Adding a new table

• Adding a new column
• Modifying a table column
• Modify column type
• Importing stored procedures

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 Code First

Domain
Entity Framework Database
Classes

Code-First Approach

Migrations
• Adding a new tables
• Seeding the database with SQL queries
• Modifying existing classes
• Adding new property

• Modifying existing property

• Overriding conventions using Data Annotations

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 SEHS4701 Advanced Information Systems
Development

The End

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