Managing DbContext in WPF MVVM application

Question

I've been banging my head with this for days and still can't decide on which is the correct approach.
This question is targeting WPF specifically since as opposed to a web-application, many posts and articles online recommends a context per view-model approach and not a context per request.
I have a WPF MVVM application which is using an Entity-Framework DB first model.
here is an example of two models used in my app (created by EF Designer):

public partial class User
{
    public User()
    {
        this.Role = new HashSet<Role>();
    }

    public string ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<Role> Role { get; set; }
}

public class Role
{
    public Role()
    {
        this.User = new HashSet<User>();
    }

    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    public virtual ICollection<User> User { get; set; }
}

I've narrowed my options on how to handle this to the following:

1) Creating a DataAccess class which creates and disposes of the DbContext on each method call:

public class Dal
{
    public User GetUserById(object userId)
    {
        using (var db = new DbEntities())
        {
            return db.User.Find(userId);
            db.SaveChanges();
        }
    }

    public void RemoveUser(User userToRemove)
    {
        using (var db = new DbEntities())
        {
            db.User.Remove(userToRemove);
            db.SaveChanges();
        }
    }
}

which I can use in my ViewModel as follows:

public class UserManagerViewModel : ObservableObject
{
    private readonly Dal dal = new Dal();

    // models...
    //commands...
}

2) Similar to approach 1 but without the Using statements:

public class Dal : IDisposable
{
    private readonly DbEntities db = new DbEntities();
    public User GetUserById(object userId)
    {
        return db.User.Find(userId);
        db.SaveChanges();

    }

    public void RemoveUser(User userToRemove)
    {
        db.User.Remove(userToRemove);
        db.SaveChanges();
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        db.SaveChanges();
    }
}

The use is the same inside the ViewModel

3) Create a repository for each entity. Looks the same as the above options (also has the with or without the using dilemma), however every repository contains only methods related to its entity.
Afaik the use is the same as above inside my ViewModel.

4) Create a Unit-Of-Work class that will pass the appropriateRepository on demand:

public class UnitOfWork : IDisposable
{
    private DbEntities db = new DbEntities();

    private IUserRepository userRepository;
    public IUserRepository UserRepository
    {
        get
        {
            return userRepository ?? new UsersRepository(db);
        }
    }

    public void Save()
    {
        db.SaveChanges();
    }

    public void Dispose()
    {
        db.Dispose();
    }
}

and use it inside my ViewModel as follows:

public class UserManagerViewModel : ObservableObject
{
    private readonly UnitOfWork unit = new UnitOfWork();

    // models...
    //commands...
}

Which of the above approach (if any) is preferred in terms of in terms of data concurrency, better abstraction and layering and overall performance?
EDIT - Found the following paragraph in this article. :

When working with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) or Windows Forms, use a context instance per form. This lets you use change-tracking functionality that context provides.

However, it raises the question of whether I should create a DbContext object in my view-model or is it better to have a utility class such as my DAL class and reference it.

Answer 1

This is what dependency injection frameworks are designed to solve. Yes, it's yet another technology to add to your project, but once you start using DI you never look back.

The real problem here is that you're trying to make this decision in your view models when you really should be employing inversion of control and making the decision higher up. A WPF/MVVM application will want a context per-form so that changes are only submitted once a user is finished editing, and also to give the user the opportunity to cancel the changes. I know you're not using this in a web application but a well-designed architecture means you should be able to, in which case you'll want a context per request. You may want to write a console-app utility that populates the database with static data, in this case you may want a global/singleton context for performance and ease-of-use. Lastly, your unit tests also need to mock the context, probably on a per-test basis. All four of these cases should be set up in your injection framework and your view models should neither know or care about any of them.

Here's an example. I personally use Ninject, which is specifically designed for .NET. I also prefer NHibernate, although the choice of ORM is irrelevant here. I have session objects that have different scoping requirements, and this gets set up in a Ninject module that initializes my ORM classes:

var sessionBinding = Bind<ISession>().ToMethod(ctx =>
{
    var session = ctx.Kernel.Get<INHibernateSessionFactoryBuilder>()
        .GetSessionFactory()
        .OpenSession();
    return session;
});

if (this.SingleSession)
    sessionBinding.InSingletonScope();
else if (this.WebSession)
    sessionBinding.InRequestScope();
else
    sessionBinding.InScope(ScreenScope);

This sets up the scoping for an ISession, which is the NHibernate equivalent of your context class. My repository classes, which manage the database objects in memory, contain a reference to the session they are associated with:

public class RepositoryManager : IRepositoryManager
{
    [Inject]
    public ISession Session { get; set; }

    ... etc...
{

The [Inject] attribute tells Ninject to populate this field automatically using the scoping rules I've set up. So far this is all happening in my domain classes, but it extends to my view model layer as well. In my scoping rules I pass in an object called "ScreenScope", and while I won't go into it here it basically means that any time I ask for a session object in my ScreenViewModel, or any view models that it has as members (including their own children) the same ISession object gets automatically created and passed in to all of them. By using DI scoping I don't even have to think about it, I just declare the members with the [Inject] attribute and it happens:

public class ScreenViewModel
{
    [Inject] public CustomerService CustomerService { get; set; }
    [Inject] public SalesService SalesService { get; set; }
    [Inject] public BillService BillService { get; set; }
    ...etc...
}

These service classes all contains a RepositoryManager that has been injected, and since they're all in ScreenViewModel the ISession object will be the same, at least in my WPF build. if I switch to my MVC build they're the same for all view models created for a given request, and if I switch to a console build it uses the same ISession for everything in the entire program.

TL;DR: Use dependency injection and a scope your contexts to one-per-form.