Generating code for simple SQL Server data access without Entity Framework, works with .NET Core

I realise that Microsoft’s Entity Framework is the most common approach for data access in the .NET world, but I have also always had good results from a simple manual approach using DbConnection, DbCommand and DataReader objects, and like the fact that I can see and control exactly what SQL gets executed. If you prefer using Entity Framework or another abstraction that is fine and please stop reading now!

One snag with this more manual approach is that you have to write tedious code building SQL statements. I figured that someone must have written a utility application to generate this code but could not find one quickly so I did my own. It supports both C# and Visual Basic. The utility connects to a database and lets you generate a class for each table along with code for retrieving and saving these objects, ready for modification. Here you can see a generated class:

image

and here is an example of the generated data access code:

image

This is NOT complete code (otherwise I would be perilously close to writing my own ORM) but simply automates creating SQL parameters and SQL statements.

One of my thoughts was that this code should work well with .NET core. The SQLClient implements the required classes. Here is my code for retrieving an author object, mostly generated by my utility:

public static ClsAuthor GetAuthor(string authorID)
        {
            SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(ConnectString);
            SqlCommand cmd = new SqlCommand();
            SqlDataReader dr;
            ClsAuthor TheAuthor = new ClsAuthor();
            try
            {
                cmd.CommandText = "Select * from Authors where au_id = @auid";
                cmd.Parameters.Add("@auid", SqlDbType.Char);
                cmd.Parameters[0].Value = authorID;
                cmd.Connection = conn;
                cmd.Connection.Open();

                dr = cmd.ExecuteReader();

            if (dr.Read()) {

                    //Get Function
                    TheAuthor.Auid = GetSafeDbString(dr, "au_id");
                    TheAuthor.Aulname = GetSafeDbString(dr, "au_lname");
                    TheAuthor.Aufname = GetSafeDbString(dr, "au_fname");
                    TheAuthor.Phone = GetSafeDbString(dr, "phone");
                    TheAuthor.Address = GetSafeDbString(dr, "address");
                    TheAuthor.City = GetSafeDbString(dr, "city");
                    TheAuthor.State = GetSafeDbString(dr, "state");
                    TheAuthor.Zip = GetSafeDbString(dr, "zip");
                    TheAuthor.Contract = GetSafeDbBool(dr, "contract");
                }
            }
            finally
            {
                conn.Close();
                conn.Dispose();
            }

            return TheAuthor;
        }

Everything worked perfectly and I soon had a table showing the authors, using ASP.NET MVC.

In order to verify that it really does work with .NET Core I moved the project to Visual Studio Mac and ran it there:

image

I may be unusual; but I am reassured that I have a relatively painless way to write a database application for .NET Core without using Entity Framework.

5 thoughts on “Generating code for simple SQL Server data access without Entity Framework, works with .NET Core”

  1. You have a memory leak in that snippet of code, if I’m not mistaken. At least cmd should be disposed of (maybe also dr, depending of what cmd.ExecuteReader(); does, if it allocates memory for a new object and returns it, it should also be disposed of). Even if the Garbage Collector would eventually take care of them, their continuing existence may keep the referred connection alive longer than needs to.

    In general, a good maxim when coding is “What thou new’d, thou shall dispose’d, unless returne’d” (sorry for the crappy old English).

  2. How about using Dapper? I believe it’s working with .Net Core although I confess I’ve not tried it myself.

  3. Thank you. Too many Microsoft produced help pages use Entity Framework. EF is not needed for simple queries and fails for bad performance when querying Oracle.

    Hope MS will learn the lesson and stop adding layer upon layer of useless lard in their examples.

Comments are closed.