Repository without Entity framework [closed]

Question

I am fairly new to the Repository pattern (just got back from stone age, hi everyone :-). My dilemma is that I am need to develop a way my Windows Store app work with SQLite (SQLite-Net) today, and in a near future work off WCF services (or some non-direct database access). Basically I want to switch provider for my data access layer easily.

The best site I came across with example is this blog (http://blog.longle.net/2013/05/11/genericizing-the-unit-of-work-pattern-repository-pattern-with-entity-framework-in-mvc/) But like any other place it still have heavy dose of Entity framework which I don't think applicable to my situation.

Can someone point out possible solutions or references that I can further work on ?

Thanks

Answer 1

Welcome back! I hope the food was good. :-)

You can implement the Repository pattern by writing your own data access layer (DAL) as an interface, and then just writing adapter classes to SQLite and WCF respectively, that both implement that interface. Your interface(s) would define query methods and update methods. For example, you can write the following:

public interface IWidgetRepository
{
    // Query methods
    Widget GetById(string id);
    IEnumerable<Widget> GetFeaturedWidgets();
    IEnumerable<Widget> GetRecommendedWidgetsForUser(string userId);

    // Update methods
    void RenameWidget(string id, string newName);
    void UpdateWidgetPrice(string id, decimal newPrice);
}

See also this answer on a similar question; it goes into some more detail. You're in the same situation as in that question, even though it looks different on the surface because you're coming from a different starting point. But the solution is the same once you see how the underlying pattern works.