DotNetBrightener.WebApi.GenericCRUD.Generator 2024.0.1

Code Generator for Centralized CRUD WebAPI in ASP.NET Core Applications

© 2024 DotNet Brightener

Getting Started

Create new project

You can create the project in Visual Studio for your convenience. You can put everything into one single WebAPI project, but it's recommended not to do that, instead, you should separate the project into different libraries. The suggestion is as the following table

If you like CLI, you can follow the instruction below.

1. Create a new .NET 8 WebAPI project:

dotnet new webapi -n {your-project-name} -f net8.0
dotnet new classlib -n {your-project-name}.Database -f net8.0
dotnet new sln --name {your-project-name}
dotnet sln {your-project-name}.sln add {your-project-name}\\{your-project-name}.csproj
dotnet sln {your-project-name}.sln add {your-project-name}.Database\\{your-project-name}.Database.csproj

2. If needed to separate the entity definitions to a different library, create new class library project

dotnet new classlib -n {your-project-name}.Core -f net8.0
dotnet sln {your-project-name}.sln add {your-project-name}.Core\\{your-project-name}.Core.csproj

3. If needed to separate the service layer, create new class library project

dotnet new classlib -n {your-project-name}.Services -f net8.0
dotnet sln {your-project-name}.sln add {your-project-name}.Services\\{your-project-name}.Services.csproj

Now you can open the solution in Visual Studio.

Add Generic CRUD and its Generator Library

1. Add CRUD libraries

Add the following packages to the projects, following the instruction below

2. Update the settings to enable code generator

Open the csproj files and update the <PackageReference> of the Generator library with the following

<ItemGroup>
	<PackageReference Include="DotNetBrightener.WebApi.GenericCRUD.Generator"
					  Version="{current-version-of-the-library}"
					  OutputItemType="Analyzer"
					  ReferenceOutputAssembly="false" />
</ItemGroup>

The change is to add

	OutputItemType="Analyzer"
	ReferenceOutputAssembly="false"

to the XML tag, that enables the auto generate code for the projects.

Create first entity

The entities must inherit from BaseEntity or BaseEntityWithAuditInfo from the DotNetBrightener.DataAccess.Abstractions library. Create any entity into the Core or Entity project.

Example:

using DotNetBrightener.DataAccess.Models;
 
namespace CRUDWebApiWithGeneratorDemo.Core.Entities;

public class Product: BaseEntity
{
    [MaxLength(255)]
    public string Name { get; set; }

	// omitted code
}

The Entity/Core project should only contain the entities without any other logics

Configure Code Generator for Service Project

At the root of Service project, create a class CRUDDataServiceGeneratorRegistration.cs with the following content

using CRUDWebApiWithGeneratorDemo.Core.Entities;
 
namespace CRUDWebApiWithGeneratorDemo.Services;
 
public class CRUDDataServiceGeneratorRegistration
{
    public List<Type> Entities =
    [
		// provide all entities that need to generate CRUD data service for
        typeof(Product),
        typeof(ProductCategory)
    ];
}

The name CRUDDataServiceGeneratorRegistration is strictly required as the generator library will look for that file in order to understand what to generate.

In the Entities list in the class, provide all the entities that needed to generate the CRUD data service interfaces and classes.

Configure Code Generator for WebAPI Project

At the root of WebAPI project, create a class CRUDWebApiGeneratorRegistration.cs with the following content

public class CRUDWebApiGeneratorRegistration
{
	// reference the CRUDDataServiceGeneratorRegistration from Service project
    Type DataServiceRegistrationType = typeof(CRUDDataServiceGeneratorRegistration);
 
    public List<Type> Entities =
    [
		// provide all entities that need to generate CRUD API Controllers for
		// Some entities related to Authorization / Authentication / Security should be ignored
        typeof(Product),
        typeof(ProductCategory)
    ];
}

The name CRUDWebApiGeneratorRegistration is strictly required as the generator library will look for that file in order to understand what to generate.

In the Entities list in the class, provide all the entities that needed to generate the CRUD Web API Controllers for.

Build and Run Project

As you followed the instruction so far, upon building and running the project, the needed classes will be automatically generated. By default, .NET WebAPI project includes the OpenAPI library, which will detect the available APIs and you can see the following when the project is launch:

![[swagger_screenshot.png]]

Auto-Generated Web APIs

The generator will generate the following APIs for each entity

GET /api/{entity-name} - Get all entities

This API accepts the following query string parameters

GET /api/{entity-name}/{id} - Get entity by id

This API accepts the following query string parameters

POST /api/{entity-name} - Create new entity

PUT /api/{entity-name}/{id} - Update entity by id

DELETE /api/{entity-name}/{id} - Delete entity by id

PUT /api/{entity-name}/{id}/undelete - Restore entity by id