☠️ ⚠️ ☠️ WARNING!!! ☠️ ⚠️ ☠️

This project is archived and dangerous!

QuickDAL was originally created to provide an abstraction over SQL on a project that proved difficult to migrate to other ORM's at the time. QuickDAL was an in-house solution developed to bridge the gap. It sufficiently fulfilled that role, but contains a critical "feature" that should never ever ever ever be used in a production codebase as-is.

Namely, this DAL allows you to query for model A using criteria from model Z without specifying the specific relationship/join path. QuickDAL will instead "search" for and use the most likely intended path from A to Z (usually the shortest-path). Maybe this is a cool feature for some geeky projects. For real-world applications, this is a terrible, terrible feature. DO NOT USE IT.

Feel free to pick this up, play with it, and learn from it. But, do not use it as-is in production.

If I had to do it again

I would definitely forgo the implicit join logic, saving me tons of mental energy and proably reducing the codebase by around 80%.

If you're out there, creating your own DAL or ORM, be explicit! 😅

QuickDAL

A very small library that provides a simple and efficient Data Access Layer between business entities and a T-SQL compatible database.

Entities that inherit from QuickDAL's DataObject class and inform QuickDAL about how they relate to the database can be queried effortlessly.

The simple

Assume we have a Product entity that has been properly mapped. Writing queries against that entity is simple and straightforward.

Getting a single record with its PK

Guid id = GetProductIdFromRequest();
Product p = Product.Get(id);

Finding records using an exact matching

List<Product> products = Product.Get(new Product() {
	Name = "Product Name"
});

Finding records using multiple search fields

List<Product> products = Product.Get(new Product() {
	Name = "Product Name",
	Category = 3
});

Find records using fuzzy/TSQL-LIKE matching

List<Product> products = Product.Get(new Product() {
	Name = "%boring%"
}, true);

Finding records using multiple all-inclusive (OR) terms

E.g. retrieve all products named "Boring Product Name" or "Uncle Bob".

List<Product> products = Product.Get(new List<DataObject>() {
	new Product() { Name = "Boring Product Name" },
	new Product() { Name = "Uncle Bob"}
});

The sophisticated

Assume we have a long chain of related and properly mapped classes:

Content <-> Product <- LineItem -> Order <- Customer

Finding data related to a known entity or "distant" search term is effortless. QuickDAL will use the shortest mapped path between the entities.

Finding records immediately related to a specific record

Order o = Order.Get(new Guid("{47E9A983-4655-4C34-BB6E-E2A4C315D428}"))
List<LineItem> lines = LineItem.Get(o);

Finding records based on criteria from a related entity

Order searchOrder = new Order() { Date = DateTime.Today };
List<LineItem> linesOrderdToday = LineItem.Get(searchOrder);

Finding "distant" records related to a specific record

E.g., find all Content available to a logged in customer.

Customer c = Customer.Get(GetLoggedInCustomerId());    // or something
List<Content> availableContent = Content.Get(c);

Finding records based on "distant" search criteria.

E.g., find all Content available to Customers in Wisconsin.

Customer criteria = new Customer() { State = "WI" };
List<Content> avialableContent = Content.Get(criteria);

Well and good, aye!? You just need to learn how to get your entities mapped to the schema now.

svidgen / QuickDAL