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MediatR CQRS - How to deal with unexisting resources (asp.net core web api)

So I've recently started to learn about using the MediatR library with ASP.NET Core Web API and I'm unsure how to go about returning a NotFound() when a DELETE/PUT/PATCH request has been made for an unexisting resource.
If we take DELETE for example, here is my controller action:
[HttpDelete("{id}")]
public async Task<IActionResult> Delete(int id)
{
await Mediator.Send(new DeleteCourseCommand {Id = id});
return NoContent();
}
The Command:
public class DeleteCourseCommand : IRequest
{
public int Id { get; set; }
}
The Command Handler:
public class DeleteCourseCommandHandler : IRequestHandler<DeleteCourseCommand>
{
private readonly UniversityDbContext _context;
public DeleteCourseCommandHandler(UniversityDbContext context)
{
_context = context;
}
public async Task<Unit> Handle(DeleteCourseCommand request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
var course = await _context.Courses.FirstOrDefaultAsync(c => c.Id == request.Id, cancellationToken);
if (course != null)
{
_context.Courses.Remove(course);
var saveResult = await _context.SaveChangesAsync(cancellationToken);
if (saveResult <= 0)
{
throw new DeleteFailureException(nameof(course), request.Id, "Database save was not successful.");
}
}
return Unit.Value;
}
}
As you can see in the Handle method, if there is an error when saving, an exception is thrown which results in a 500 internal server error (which is correct I believe). But if the Course is not found, how can I feed this back to the Action on the Controller? Is it simply a case of invoking a Query to GET the course in the Controller Action, then return NotFound() if it doesn't exist or then invoke the Command to DELETE the Course? This would work of course but of all the examples I've been through, I haven't come across an Action which uses two Mediator calls.

MediatR supports a Request/Response pattern, which allows you to return a response from your handler class. To use this approach, you can use the generic version of IRequest, like this:
public class DeleteCourseCommand : IRequest<bool>
...
In this case, we're stating that bool will be the response type. I'm using bool here for simplicity: I'd suggest using something more descriptive for your final implementation but bool suffices for explanation purposes.
Next, you can update your DeleteCourseCommandHandler to use this new response type, like this:
public class DeleteCourseCommandHandler : IRequestHandler<DeleteCourseCommand, bool>
{
...
public async Task<bool> Handle(DeleteCourseCommand request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
var course = ...
if (course == null)
return false; // Simple example, where false means it wasn't found.
...
return true;
}
}
The IRequestHandler being implemented now has two generic types, the command and the response. This requires updating the signature of Handle to return a bool instead of Unit (in your question, Unit isn't being used).
Finally, you'll need to update your Delete action to use the new response type, like this:
public async Task<IActionResult> Delete(int id)
{
var courseWasFound = await Mediator.Send(new DeleteCourseCommand {Id = id});
if (!courseWasFound)
return NotFound();
return NoContent();
}

I like returning events from my commands. The command is telling your application what the client wants it to do. The response is what it actually did.
BTW—it's said that command handlers should return anything. That's really only true in a fully async environment where the command won't be completed until sometime after the response to the client that it's accepted. In that case, you would return Task<Unit> and publish these events. The client would get them via some other channel, like a SignalR hub once they were raised. Either way, events are the best way to tell a client what's going on in your application.
Start by defining an interface for your events
public interface IEvent
{
}
Then, create events for each of the things that can happen in a command. You can include information in them if you'd want to do something with that information or just leave them empty if the class itself is enough.
public class CourseNotFoundEvent : IEvent
{
}
public class CourseDeletedEvent : IEvent
{
}
Now, have your command return an event interface.
public class DeleteCourseCommand : IRequest<IEvent>
{
}
Your handler would look something like this:
public class DeleteCourseCommandHandler : IRequestHandler<DeleteCourseCommand, IEvent>
{
private readonly UniversityDbContext _context;
public DeleteCourseCommandHandler(UniversityDbContext context)
{
_context = context;
}
public async Task<IEvent> Handle(DeleteCourseCommand request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
var course = await _context.Courses.FirstOrDefaultAsync(c => c.Id == request.Id, cancellationToken);
if (course is null)
return new CourseNotFoundEvent();
_context.Courses.Remove(course);
var saveResult = await _context.SaveChangesAsync(cancellationToken);
if (saveResult <= 0)
{
throw new DeleteFailureException(nameof(course), request.Id, "Database save was not successful.");
}
return new CourseDeletedEvent();
}
}
Finally, you can use pattern matching on your web API to do things based on the event that gets returned.
[HttpDelete("{id}")]
public async Task<IActionResult> Delete(int id)
{
var #event = await Mediator.Send(new DeleteCourseCommand {Id = id});
if(#event is CourseNotFoundEvent)
return NotFound();
return NoContent();
}

I managed to solve my problem through some more examples I found. The solution is to define custom Exceptions such as NotFoundException and then throw this in the Handle method of the Query/Command Handler. Then in order for MVC to handle this appropriately, an implementation of ExceptionFilterAttribute is needed to decide how each Exception is handled:
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class | AttributeTargets.Method)]
public class CustomExceptionFilterAttribute : ExceptionFilterAttribute
{
public override void OnException(ExceptionContext context)
{
if (context.Exception is ValidationException)
{
context.HttpContext.Response.ContentType = "application/json";
context.HttpContext.Response.StatusCode = (int)HttpStatusCode.BadRequest;
context.Result = new JsonResult(
((ValidationException)context.Exception).Failures);
return;
}
var code = HttpStatusCode.InternalServerError;
if (context.Exception is NotFoundException)
{
code = HttpStatusCode.NotFound;
}
context.HttpContext.Response.ContentType = "application/json";
context.HttpContext.Response.StatusCode = (int)code;
context.Result = new JsonResult(new
{
error = new[] { context.Exception.Message }
});
}
}
Startup Class:
services.AddMvc(options => options.Filters.Add(typeof(CustomExceptionFilterAttribute)));
Custom Exception:
public class NotFoundException : Exception
{
public NotFoundException(string entityName, int key)
: base($"Entity {entityName} with primary key {key} was not found.")
{
}
}
Then in the Handle method:
if (course != null)
{
_context.Courses.Remove(course);
var saveResult = await _context.SaveChangesAsync(cancellationToken);
if (saveResult <= 0)
{
throw new DeleteFailureException(nameof(course), request.Id, "Database save was not successful.");
}
}
else
{
throw new NotFoundException(nameof(Course), request.Id);
}
return Unit.Value;
This seems to do the trick, if anyone can see any potential issues with this please let me know!

What happens when we don't await an async method

I have a .NET CORE 2 backend. In one of my controller endpoints, I'm creating invitations to be sent out via email. This seems to be a huge bottleneck on the endpoint and after thinking about it, I don't really need to wait for these invitations. If the email fails to send out, I can't really do anything about it anyway.
If I don't do await sendFn() would it essentially be a fire and forget method? I was reading on another stackoverflow thread that I'd have to do sendFn().ContinueWith(t => throw(t)) to be able to catch the exception since it'll be in another thread.
I have similar mailing functions around the code base. They each do slightly different things, but is there a service fn I can do to wrap these to make them fire and forget? I think some places I can just not use await (if that works), but some things alter the database context so if I don't await them I can potentially run into a case where something is accessing the same db context.
[HttpPost]
public async Task<IActionResult> CreateEvent([FromBody] Event val)
{
_ctx.Event.Add(val);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await SendInvitations(val); // fn in question
return Ok();
}
public async Task SendInvitation(Event event)
{
forEach (var person in event.people)
{
await _ctx.Invitation.Add(person); // This shouldn't happen while another iteration or some other async code elsewhere is using the db ctx.
_ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await _mailService.SendMail(person.email,"you have been invited"); // don't really need to await this.
}
}
I'm posting to my server with data about an event. After I create and save the event to the database, I go and create invitations for each person. These invitations are also database items. I then send out an email. I'm mostly worried that if I drop the await, then when I'm creating invitations, it may conflict with db context elsewhere or the next iteration.

To get your code to compile and run I had to make these changes:
public async Task<IActionResult> CreateEvent(Event val)
{
_ctx.Event.Add(val);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await SendInvitation(val);
return Ok();
}
public async Task SendInvitation(Event #event)
{
foreach (var person in #event.people)
{
await _ctx.Invitation.Add(person);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await _mailService.SendMail(person.email, "you have been invited");
}
}
I also had to write this harness code:
public OK Ok() => new OK();
public class Event
{
public List<Person> people = new List<Person>();
}
public class Person
{
public string email;
}
public interface IActionResult { }
public class OK : IActionResult { }
public class Invitation
{
public Task Add(Person person) => Task.Run(() => { });
}
public static class _ctx
{
public static List<Event> Event = new List<Event>();
public static Invitation Invitation = new Invitation();
public static Task SaveChangesAsync() { return Task.Run(() => { }); }
}
public static class _mailService
{
public static Task SendMail(string email, string message) { return Task.Run(() => { }); }
}
Then I updated SendInvitation like this:
public async Task SendInvitation(Event #event)
{
Thread.Sleep(2000);
foreach (var person in #event.people)
{
await _ctx.Invitation.Add(person);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
await _mailService.SendMail(person.email, "you have been invited");
}
Console.WriteLine("Done `SendInvitation`.");
}
Now, I can run it all like so:
var e = new Event();
e.people.Add(new Person() { email = "foo#bar.com" });
CreateEvent(e).ContinueWith(t => Console.WriteLine("Done `CreateEvent`."));
Console.WriteLine("Done `Main`.");
That outputs:
Done `Main`.
Then 2 seconds later:
Done `SendInvitation`.
Done `CreateEvent`.
If I simply change CreateEvent to this:
public async Task<IActionResult> CreateEvent(Event val)
{
_ctx.Event.Add(val);
await _ctx.SaveChangesAsync();
Task.Run(() => SendInvitation(val));
return Ok();
}
Then I get this output:
Done `Main`.
Done `CreateEvent`.
Then 2 seconds later:
Done `SendInvitation`.
That seems to be what you want.

The short answer is that you have no guarantees that that the execution of that code will complete.
That's why ASP.NET Core has infrastructure for background work: Implementing background tasks in .NET Core 2.x webapps or microservices with IHostedService and the BackgroundService class

In-memory database doesn't save data

I have a simple web-app with angular on client-side and asp.net core web-api on server-side. I use InMemoryDatabase
services.AddDbContext<ItemsContext>(options => options.UseInMemoryDatabase("ItemsDB"));
to store data for the simplisity of the development. But I've encountered an issue with that. I have one controller on web-api to response for users' requests:
[Route("api/[controller]")]
public class ItemsController : Controller
{
private readonly IApiService apiService;
public ItemsController(IApiService apiService)//using DI from Startup.cs
{
this.apiService = apiService;
}
[HttpPost, Route("addItem")]
public async Task<Response> Add([FromBody]Item item)
{
return await apiService.Add(item);
}
[HttpDelete("{id}")]
public async Task<Response> Delete(int id)
{
return await apiService.Delete(id);
}
[HttpPut]
public async Task<Response> Put([FromBody]Item item)
{
return await apiService.Put(item);
}
}
and the following Startup.cs configurations:
public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddMvc();
services.AddDbContext<ItemsContext>(options => options.UseInMemoryDatabase("ItemsDB"));
services.AddSingleton<IUnitOfWork, UnitOfWork>(provider => {
var context = services.BuildServiceProvider().GetService<ItemsContext>();
return new UnitOfWork(context);
});
services.AddSingleton<IApiService, ApiService>(provider => {
return new ApiService(services);
});
}
The problem is, that when I add new item, everything goes just fine...but then I post another request to delete this item it may show there there is no such an item at all or sometimes it may delete it...so in other words, the database exists and then disappears and I'm not sure when. Here is some additional code refering to the above
public class ApiService: IApiService
{
private readonly IUnitOfWork database;
private readonly IServiceProvider provider;
public ApiService(IServiceCollection serviceCollection)
{
provider = serviceCollection.BuildServiceProvider();
}
public IUnitOfWork Database
{
get
{
return provider.GetService<IUnitOfWork>();
}
}
public async Task<Response> Add(Item item)
{
Database.Items.Add(item);
await Database.SaveAsync();
var id = Database.Items.LastItem().Id;
return new Response() { Result = true, ItemId = id };
}
public async Task<Response> Delete(int id)
{
var item = await db.Items.Find(id);
Database.Items.Remove(item);
await Database.SaveAsync();
return new Response() { Result = true };
}
public async Task<Response> Put(Item item)
{
Database.Items.Update(item);
await Database.SaveAsync();
return new Response() { Result = true };
}
}
Update:
UnitOfWork Implementation:
public class UnitOfWork: IUnitOfWork
{
private readonly DbContext context;
private IRepository<Item> itemsRepository;
public UnitOfWork(DbContext dbContext)
{
context = dbContext;
}
public IRepository<Item> Items
{
get
{
return itemsRepository ?? (itemsRepository = new Repository<Item>(context));
}
}
public void Dispose()
{
context.Dispose();
}
public void Save()
{
context.SaveChanges();
}
public async Task SaveAsync()
{
await context.SaveChangesAsync();
}
}

Your code has multiple serious problems, let's go through them.
services.AddDbContext adds a Scoped service, meaning that instances will be created and disposed on each request. services.AddSingleton adds a Singleton service, so only a single instance will ever be created. You cannot add a scoped service to a singleton one, because the reference the singleton service uses will be disposed and you will end up with a disposed context.
This code:
return provider.GetService<IUnitOfWork>();
represents the service locator anti-pattern. As you can guess, an anti-pattern is something you want to avoid. I also don't know why you would want a service to build the entire DI container nor why you would want a service to have the responsibility of getting the dependencies it needs itself.
This part here is where your question actually comes from:
Database.SaveAsync();
You are calling an asynchronous function and not awaiting for it to finish. The task may finish or not, it may throw an error or not, you will never know what happened.
The best thing is that all of these could be avoided if people stopped attempting to create a Unit of Work + Repository pattern over yet another Unit of Work and Repository. Entity Framework Core already implements these:
DbContext => Unit of Work
DbSet => Repository (generic)
Why do you want yet another abstraction? Will you really ever throw away EF Core from the project to justify the maintenance cost of your code?
The entire question code could have just been this:
[Route("api/[controller]")]
public class ItemsController : Controller
{
private readonly YourContext _context;
public ItemsController(YourContext context)
{
_context = context;
}
[HttpPost]
public async Task<IActionResult> Add([FromBody]Item item)
{
context.Items.Add(item);
await context.SaveChangesAsync();
return Ok(item.Id);
}
[HttpDelete("{id}")]
public async Task<IActionResult> Delete(int id)
{
var item = await context.Items.FindAsync(id);
context.Items.Remove(item);
await context.SaveChangesAsync();
return Ok();
}
[HttpPut]
public async Task<IActionResult> Put([FromBody]Item item)
{
context.Items.Update(item);
await context.SaveChangesAsync();
return Ok();
}
}

Async Func in C# - correct async await usage

I want to simplify out repository code and want to use Funcs to provide common functionality.
The problem now is based on this code:
namespace Test
{
public class Demo
{
public Task<Person> GetAsync1(Guid id)
{
return ExecuteAsync(context => context.Persons.GetAsync(id));
}
public async Task<Person> GetAsync2(Guid id)
{
return await ExecuteAsync(async context => await context.Persons.GetAsync(id));
}
public Task<Person> GetAsync3(Guid id)
{
return ExecuteAsync(async context => await context.Persons.GetAsync(id));
}
public Task<TOut> ExecuteAsync(Func<Context, Task<TOut>> func)
{
using(var context = new Context())
{
return func(context);
}
}
}
}
The problem here for me is now how to call the async func correctly.
Which of those three Get methods is correct?
With the first one I think I get a deadlock because it hangs at this point. Number 2 works fine but I think two async/awaits here are not correct, because of the Task re-wrapping!?

Actually all 3 GetAsync implmentations where fine to do (personally I would use GetAsync1), what you have is a bug in ExecuteAsync
public async Task<TOut> ExecuteAsync(Func<Context, Task<TOut>> func)
{
using(var context = new Context())
{
return await func(context);
}
}
By awaiting the output of func you do not dispose of the context until the function has completed it's work.

Result of a async task is blocking

I have an issue with a task blocking when I try to retrieve it's result.
I have the following piece of code I want executed synchronously (which is why I'm looking for the result)
I would ignore the reason each call has to be made (legacy software that requires multiple calls through different layers)
the call seems to break down after it starts the task for the final call to be made in the PostCreateProfile, I can see this request never makes it any further than this.
if (CreateProfile(demographics).Result) // Task blocks here
{
//dothing
}
private async Task<bool> CreateProfile(Demographics demographics)
{
ProfileService profileService = new ProfileService();
CreateProfileBindingModel createProfileBindingModel = this.CreateProfileModel(demographics);
return await profileService.Create(createProfileBindingModel);
}
public async Task<bool> Create(CreateProfileBindingModel model)
{
HttpResponseMessage response = await profileServiceRequest.PostCreateProfile(rootURL, model);
return response.IsSuccessStatusCode;
}
public Task<HttpResponseMessage> PostCreateProfile(string url, CreateProfileBindingModel model)
{
HttpContent contents = SerialiseModelData(model);
var resultTask = client.PostAsync(url, contents);
return resultTask;
}
The request will reach its destination if I was to change CreateProfile to an async void like so:
private async void CreateProfile(AppointmentController controller)
{
ProfileService profileService = new ProfileService();
CreateProfileBindingModel createProfileBindingModel = this.CreateProfileModel(controller);
await profileService.Create(createProfileBindingModel);
}
But I can't return the bool I want to use from this.
Can anyone point out what I am doing wrong?

You should never call .Result on a async/await chain.
Whatever code that calls CreateProfile(demographics) needs to be async too so it can do
if (await CreateProfile(demographics))
{
//dothing
}
Also, if you can you really should put .ConfigureAwait(false) wherever it is logically possible.
if (await CreateProfile(demographics).ConfigureAwait(false)) // depending on what dothing is you may not want it here.
{
//dothing
}
private async Task<bool> CreateProfile(Demographics demographics)
{
ProfileService profileService = new ProfileService();
CreateProfileBindingModel createProfileBindingModel = this.CreateProfileModel(demographics);
return await profileService.Create(createProfileBindingModel).ConfigureAwait(false);
}
public async Task<bool> Create(CreateProfileBindingModel model)
{
HttpResponseMessage response = await profileServiceRequest.PostCreateProfile(rootURL, model).ConfigureAwait(false);
return response.IsSuccessStatusCode;
}
public Task<HttpResponseMessage> PostCreateProfile(string url, CreateProfileBindingModel model)
{
HttpContent contents = SerialiseModelData(model);
var resultTask = client.PostAsync(url, contents);
return resultTask;
}