Using Repository Pattern in Entity Framework

One of the most common pattern is followed in the world of Entity Framework is “Repository Pattern”. Since this is something which is heavily used and being practiced, I am not going to talk about the core pattern. Rather, try to show how one can implement it.

Objectives

As mentioned in http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff649690.aspx

• You want to maximize the amount of code that can be tested with automation and to isolate the data layer to support unit testing.
• You access the data source from many locations and want to apply centrally managed, consistent access rules and logic.
• You want to implement and centralize a caching strategy for the data source.
• You want to improve the code’s maintainability and readability by separating business logic from data or service access logic.
• You want to use business entities that are strongly typed so that you can identify problems at compile time instead of at run time.
• You want to associate a behavior with the related data. For example, you want to calculate fields or enforce complex relationships or business rules between the data elements within an entity.
• You want to apply a domain model to simplify complex business logic.

 

Simple approach to ADO.NET Entity Framework

Let’s have one domain class called “Employee”

public class Employee

{

    public int Id { get; set; }

    public string FullName { get; set; }

}

 

Now using this we will have a simple context class

public class HRContext : DbContext

{        

    public DbSet<DomainClasses.Employee> Employees { get; set; }

}

After that, define the repository interface IEmployeeRepository

 

public interface IEmployeeRepository : IDisposable

{

    IQueryable<Employee> All { get; }

    IQueryable<Employee> AllIncluding(params Expression<Func<Employee, object>>[] includeProperties);

    Employee Find(int id);

    void InsertOrUpdate(Employee employee);

    void Delete(int id);

    void Save();

}

Then the Repository class called EmployeeRepository

 

public class EmployeeRepository : IEmployeeRepository

{

    HRContext context = new HRContext();

    public IQueryable<Employee> All

    {

        get { return context.Employees; }

    }

    public IQueryable<Employee> AllIncluding(params Expression<Func<Employee, object>>[] includeProperties)

    {

        IQueryable<Employee> query = context.Employees;

        foreach (var includeProperty in includeProperties) {

            query = query.Include(includeProperty);

        }

        return query;

    }

    public Employee Find(int id)

    {

        return context.Employees.Find(id);

    }

    public void InsertOrUpdate(Employee employee)

    {

        if (employee.Id == default(int)) {

            // New entity

            context.Employees.Add(employee);

        } else {

            // Existing entity

            context.Entry(employee).State = EntityState.Modified;

        }

    }

    public void Delete(int id)

    {

        var employee = context.Employees.Find(id);

        context.Employees.Remove(employee);

    }

    public void Save()

    {

        context.SaveChanges();

    }

    public void Dispose() 

    {

        context.Dispose();

    }

}

 

Then you should be implementing it in your apps (any type Windows or Web), like a Console Application

 

namespace ConsoleApplication

{

    class Program

    {

        static void Main(string[] args)

        {

            GetSomeEmployee();

        }

        private static void IntiateData()

        {

            using (var repo = new EmployeeRepository())

            {

                Employee em = new Employee() { FullName = "Wriju" };

                repo.InsertOrUpdate(em);

                repo.Save();

            }

        }

        private static void GetSomeEmployee()

        {

            using (var repo = new EmployeeRepository()) 

            {

                foreach (var emp in repo.All)

                {

                    Console.WriteLine("{0} - {1}", emp.Id, emp.FullName);

                }

            }            

        }

    }

}

 

This obviously simple approach. The recommended options are to make the Repository generic and handle the related entities. I will discuss about them later.

 

Namoskar!!!

 

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