Entity Framework Core 1.0 unit of work with Asp.Net Core middleware or Mvc filter

Question

I am using EF Core 1.0 (previously known ad EF7) and ASP.NET Core 1.0 (previously known as ASP.NET 5) for a RESTful API.

I'd like to have some unit of work scoped to an http request in such a way that when responding to the HTTP request either ALL the changes made to the DbContext will be saved onto the database, or none will be saved (if there was some exception, for example).

In the past I have used WebAPI2 for this purpose with NHibernate by using an Action filter where I begin the transaction on action executing, and on action executed I end the transaction and close the session. This was the way recommended at http://isbn.directory/book/9781484201107

However now I am using Asp.Net Core (with Asp.Net Core Mvc although this should not be relevant) and Entity Framework which, I understood, already implements a unit of work.

I think having a middleware plugged into the ASP.NET pipeline (before MVC) would be the right way to do things. So a request would go:

PIPELINE ASP.NET: MyUnitOfWorkMiddleware ==> MVC Controller ==> Repository ==> MVC Controller ==> MyUnitOfWorkMiddleware

I was thinking of having this middleware save the DbContext changes if no exception happened, so that in my repository implementations I don't even need to do dbcontext.SaveChanges() and everything would be like a centralized transaction. In pseudocode I guess it would be something like:

class MyUnitOfWorkMiddleware
{
     //..
     1-get an instance of DbContext for this request.
     try {
         2-await the next item in the pipeline.
         3-dbContext.SaveChanges();
     }
     catch (Exception e) {
         2.1-rollback changes (simply by ignoring context)
         2.2-return an http error response
     }
}

Does this make sense? Does anybody have any example of something similar? I can't find any good practice or recommendation around this.

Also, if I go with this approach at my MVC controller level I would not have access to any resource ID created by the database when POSTing a new resource because the ID would not be generated until the dbContext changes are saved (later on in the pipeline in my middleware AFTER the controller has finished executing). What if I needed to access the newly created ID of a resource in my controller?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

UPDATE 1: I found a problem with my approach to use middleware to achieve this because the DbContext instance in the middleware is not the same as during the MVC (and repositories) lifetime. See the question Entity Framework Core 1.0 DbContext not scoped to http request

UPDATE 2:I haven't yet found a good solution. Basically these are my options so far:

1. Save the changes in DB as soon as possible. That means saving it on the repository implementation itself. The problem with this approach is that for an Http request maybe I want to use several repositories (i.e: save something in database and then upload a blob to a cloud storage) and in order to have a Unit of Work I would have to implement a repository that deals with more than one entity or even more than one persistance method (DB and Blob Storage), which defeats the whole purpose

2. Implement an Action Filter where I wrap the whole action execution in a DB transaction. At the end of the controller's action execution, if there are no exceptions I commit chanches to DB but if there are exceptions I rollback and discard the context. The problem with this is that my controller's action may need a generated Entity's Id in order to return it to the http client (i.e: If I get a POST /api/cars I would like to return a 201 Accepted with a location header that identifies the new resource created at /api/cars/123 and the Id 123 would not be available yet since the entity has not been saved in DB and the Id is still a temporary 0). Example in controller's action for a POST verb request:

   return CreatedAtRoute("GetCarById", new { carId= carSummaryCreated.Id }, carSummaryCreated); //carSummaryCreated.Id would be 0 until the changes are saved in DB

How could I have the whole controller's action wrapped in a DB transaction and at the same time have available any Id generated by the database in order to return it in the Http Response from the controller? Or.. is there any elegant way to overwrite the http response and set the Id at the action filter level once the DB changes have been commited?

UPDATE 3: As per nathanaldensr's comment I could get the best of both worlds (wrapping my controller's action execution in a DB transaction _ UoW and also knowing the Id of the new resource created even before the DB commits changes) by using code generated Guids instead relying on database to generate the Guid.

Answer 1

As per Entity Framework Core 1.0 DbContext not scoped to http request I could not use a middleware to achieve this because the instance of DbContext that the middleware gets injected is not the same as the DbContext during MVC execution (in my controllers, or repositories).

I had to go with a similar approach to save the changes in DbContext after the controller's action execution using a Global Filter. There is no official documentation yet about filters in MVC 6 so if anybody is interested on this solution see below the filter and the way I make this filter global so that it executes before any controller's action.

public class UnitOfWorkFilter : ActionFilterAttribute
{
    private readonly MyDbContext _dbContext;
    private readonly ILogger _logger;

    public UnitOfWorkFilter(MyDbContext dbContext, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
    {
        _dbContext = dbContext;
        _logger = loggerFactory.CreateLogger<UnitOfWorkFilter>();
    }

    public override async Task OnActionExecutionAsync(ActionExecutingContext executingContext, ActionExecutionDelegate next)
    {
        var executedContext = await next.Invoke(); //to wait until the controller's action finalizes in case there was an error
        if (executedContext.Exception == null)
        {
            _logger.LogInformation("Saving changes for unit of work");
            await _dbContext.SaveChangesAsync();
        }
        else
        {
            _logger.LogInformation("Avoid to save changes for unit of work due an exception");
        }
    }
}

and the filter gets plugged into my MVC at Startup.cs when configuring MVC.

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
   //..
   //Entity Framework 7
   services.AddEntityFramework()
            .AddSqlServer()
            .AddDbContext<SpeediCargoDbContext>(options => {
               options.UseSqlServer(Configuration["Data:DefaultConnection:ConnectionString"]);
            });

        //MVC 6
        services.AddMvc(setup =>
        {
            setup.Filters.AddService(typeof(UnitOfWorkFilter));
        });
   //..
}

This still leaves a question (see UPDATE 2 on my question). What if I want my controller to respond to an http POST request with a 201 Accepted with a Location header that includes the Id of the entity created in DB? When the controller's action finalises execution the changes have not yet been committed to DB therefore the Id of the entity created is still 0 until the action filter saves changes and the DB generates a value.

Answer 2

I am also facing the same issue and not sure which approach to follow. One of the approach that I used is as follow:

public class UnitOfWorkFilter : ActionFilterAttribute
{
    private readonly AppDbContext _dbContext;

    public UnitOfWorkFilter(AppDbContext dbContext,)
    {
        _dbContext = dbContext;
    }

    public override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext context)
    {
        if (!context.HttpContext.Request.Method.Equals("Post", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
            return;
        if (context.Exception == null && context.ModelState.IsValid)
        {
            _dbContext.Database.CommitTransaction();
        }
        else
        {
            _dbContext.Database.RollbackTransaction();
        }
    }

    public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext context)
    {
        if (!context.HttpContext.Request.Method.Equals("Post", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase))
            return;
        _dbContext.Database.BeginTransaction();
    }
}