RA.Utilities.Data.Entities 10.0.0

RA.Utilities.Data.Entities

This package provides a set of core abstractions and base classes for data entities within the RA.Utilities ecosystem. It helps solve the problem of boilerplate and inconsistency in data models by providing common interfaces like IEntity<T> and base classes with standard properties like Id, CreatedDate, and UpdatedDate.

The primary goal is to promote consistency and reduce repetitive code when creating data entities for use with an ORM like Entity Framework Core.

Getting started

You can install the package via the .NET CLI:

dotnet add package RA.Utilities.Data.Entities

Or through the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio.

Usage

To use the package, simply have your entity classes inherit from one of the provided base classes. This automatically gives your entities a primary key and auditing fields.

BaseEntity<T>

This is the most common base class. It provides an Id property of a specified type T, along with CreatedDate and UpdatedDate for auditing.

Here is an example of a Product entity inheriting from BaseEntity<int>:

using RA.Utilities.Data.Entities;

public class Product : BaseEntity<int>
{
    public string Name { get; set; } = string.Empty;
    public string? Description { get; set; }
    public decimal Price { get; set; }
}

When you create an instance of this Product class, it will have the following properties:

• Id (int)
• CreatedDate (DateTime)
• UpdatedDate (DateTime?)
• Name (string)
• Description (string?)
• Price (decimal)

BaseEntity

This is a non-generic version that provides a Guid as the primary key type.

using RA.Utilities.Data.Entities;

public class Order : BaseEntity
{
    public DateTime OrderDate { get; set; }
    public decimal TotalAmount { get; set; }
    
    // Foreign key
    public Guid CustomerId { get; set; }
}

This Order class will have an Id property of type Guid.

Using with Entity Framework Core

These base entities work seamlessly with EF Core. You can configure the properties in your DbContext.

using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;

public class AppDbContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<Product> Products { get; set; }
    public DbSet<Order> Orders { get; set; }

    protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        modelBuilder.Entity<Product>(entity =>
        {
            entity.HasKey(e => e.Id);
            entity.Property(e => e.Name).IsRequired().HasMaxLength(100);
            entity.Property(e => e.Price).HasColumnType("decimal(18,2)");
        });
    }
}

Additional documentation

For more information on how this package fits into the larger RA.Utilities ecosystem, please see the main officiary documentation.

Feedback

If you have suggestions or find a bug, please open an issue in the RA.Utilities GitHub repository. Contributions are welcome!