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Update part of cache using spring.net in repository possible?

I'm building a repository with caching using spring.net. Can I update/add/delete one item in the cached list without having to rebuild the whole list?
Looking at the documentation and the example project from their site they always clear the cache whenever they update/add/delete one item. Therefore as long as you only read an object or the list of objects the caching works well but it feels stupid having to rebuild the whole cache just because I change one item?
Example:
// Cache per item and a list of items
[CacheResult("DefaultCache", "'AllMovies'", TimeToLive = "2m")]
[CacheResultItems("DefaultCache", "'Movie-' + ID")]
public IEnumerable<Movie> FindAll()
{
return movies.Values;
}
// Update or add an item invalidating the list of objects
[InvalidateCache("DefaultCache", Keys = "'AllMovies'")]
public void Save([CacheParameter("DefaultCache", "'Movie-' + ID")]Movie movie)
{
if (this.movies.ContainsKey(movie.ID))
{
this.movies[movie.ID] = movie;
}
else
{
this.movies.Add(movie.ID, movie);
}
}

Having mutable things stored in the cache seems to me a fountain of horrible side effects. Imho that is what you would need if you want to add/remove entries from a cached list.
The implementation of CacheResultAdvice and InvalidateCacheAdvice allows to store and invalidate an object (key) -> object (value) combination. You could add another layer and retrieve movie per movie but I think that it is just a case of premature optimization (with the opposite effect).
CacheResultAdvice
InvalidateCacheAdvice
Edit:
Btw. if you use a mature ORM look for integrated level2 caching, if you want to avoid hitting the db server: http://www.klopfenstein.net/lorenz.aspx/using-syscache-as-secondary-cache-in-nhibernate

AutoMapper - mapping properties from one EF4 entity to another in a loop without Before/AfterMap

It appears that AutoMapper's methods BeforeMap and AfterMap have a critical bug, which if one is attempting to iterate over a collection of the source object to populate a property of the destination object, those mapping methods execute more than once. See: Extra iterations in a foreach in an AutoMapper map
What I'm trying to do is a bit complicated, so please bear with me.
I have a EF4 many-to-many graph (Games-to-Platforms) I'm trying to build based on incoming form data. In order to build the graph, I take the raw integer ids that come from the form, and then grab the correct Platforms from my repository in order to add them to the Game's collection. You can see my attempt at doing this within BeforeMap in the link I provided above.
The problem is that I'm not sure how to proceed. I need to be able to grab a hold of the destination (Game) object in order to successfully Add the Platforms to the Game. Is something like this possible in ForMember? From what I've read, it doesn't look like a custom resolver would work for me, and I'm not sure how I'd implement a custom type converter given all the moving parts (two entities, repository).
Any ideas or suggestions?

I simply decided to make my own static mapper. Not an ideal, or even great solution, but it works. It can definitely be made more abstract, but I figure it's a band-aid until AutoMapper is fixed. My solution:
public static class GameMapper
{
public static Game Map(IGameRepository repo, AdminGameEditModel formData, Game newGame)
{
newGame.GameID = formData.GameID;
newGame.GameTitle = formData.GameTitle;
newGame.GenreID = formData.GenreID;
newGame.LastModified = DateTime.Now;
newGame.ReviewScore = (short)formData.ReviewScore;
newGame.ReviewText = formData.ReviewText;
newGame.Cons = String.Join("|", formData.Cons);
newGame.Pros = String.Join("|", formData.Pros);
newGame.Slug = formData.Slug;
if (newGame.Platforms != null && newGame.Platforms.Count > 0)
{
var oldPlats = newGame.Platforms.ToArray();
foreach (var oldPlat in oldPlats)
{
newGame.Platforms.Remove(oldPlat);
}
}
foreach (var platId in formData.PlatformIDs)
{
var plat = repo.GetPlatform(platId);
newGame.Platforms.Add(plat);
}
return newGame;
}
}
Unfortunately, I can't make the third parameter an out parameter due to my need to overwrite existing entity data during updating. Again, it's definitely not a pretty, or even good solution, but it does the job. I'm sure the OO gods will smite me at a later date.

LINQ to SQL business object creation best practices

I've been using LINQ extensively in my recent projects, however, I have not been able to find a way of dealing with objects that doesn't either seem sloppy or impractical.
I'll also note that I primarily work with ASP.net.
I hate the idea of exposing the my data context or LINQ returned types to my UI code. I prefer finer grained control over my business objects, and it also seems too tightly coupled to the db to be good practice.
Here are the approaches I've tried ..
Project items into a custom class
dc.TableName.Select(λ => new MyCustomClass(λ.ID, λ.Name, λ.Monkey)).ToList();
This obviously tends to result in a lot of wireup code for creating, updating etc...
Creating a wrapper around returned object
public class MyCustomClass
{
LinqClassName _core;
Internal MyCustomClass(LINQClassName blah)
{
_core = blah;
}
int ID {get { return _core.ID;}}
string Name { get {return _core.Name;} set {_core.Name = value;} }
}
...
dc.TableName.Select(λ => new MyCustomClass(λ)).ToList();
Seems to work pretty well but reattaching for updates seems to be nigh impossible somewhat defeating the purpose.
I also tend to like using LINQ Queries for transformations and such through my code and I'm worried about a speed hit with this method, although I haven't tried it with large enough sets to confirm yet.
Creating a wrapper around returned object while persisting data context
public class MyCustomClass
{
LinqClassName _core;
MyDataContext _dc;
...
}
Persisting the data context within my object greatly simplifies updates but seems like a lot of overhead especially when utilizing session state.
A quick Note: I know the usage of λ is not mathematically correct here - I tend to use it for my bound variable because it stands out visually, and in most lambda statements it is the transformation that is important not the variable - not sure if that makes any sense but blah
Sorry for the extremely long question.
Thanks in advance for your input and Happy New Years!

I create "Map" extension functions on the tables returning from the LINQ queries. The Map function returns a plain old CLR object. For example:
public static MyClrObject Map(this MyLinqObject o)
{
MyClrObject myObject = new MyClrObject()
{
stringValue = o.String,
secondValue = o.Second
};
return myObject;
}
You can then add the Map function to the select list in the LINQ query and have LINQ return the CLR Object like:
return (from t in dc.MyLinqObject
select t.Map()).FirstOrDefault();
If you are returning a list, you can use the ToList to get a List<> back. If you prefer to create your own list types, you need to do two things. First, create a constructor that takes an IEnumerable<> of the underlying type as it's one argument. That constructor should copy the items from the IEnumerable<> collection. Second, create a static extension method to call that constructor from the LINQ query:
public static MyObjectList ToMyObjectList(this IEnumerable<MyObjectList> collection)
{
return new MyObjectList (collection);
}
Once these methods are created, they kind of hide in the background. They don't clutter up the LINQ queries and they don't limit what operations you can perform in teh query.
This blog entry has a more thorough explanation.

In domain-driven design, would it be a violation of DDD to put calls to other objects' repostiories in a domain object?

I'm currently refactoring some code on a project that is wrapping up, and I ended up putting a lot of business logic into service classes rather than in the domain objects. At this point most of the domain objects are data containers only. I had decided to write most of the business logic in service objects, and refactor everything afterwards into better, more reuseable, and more readable shapes. That way I could decide what code should be placed into domain objects, and which code should be spun off into new objects of their own, and what code should be left in a service class. So I have some code:
public decimal CaculateBatchTotal(VendorApplicationBatch batch)
{
IList<VendorApplication> applications = AppRepo.GetByBatchId(batch.Id);
if (applications == null || applications.Count == 0)
throw new ArgumentException("There were no applications for this batch, that shouldn't be possible");
decimal total = 0m;
foreach (VendorApplication app in applications)
total += app.Amount;
return total;
}
This code seems like it would make a good addition to a domain object, because it's only input parameter is the domain object itself. Seems like a perfect candidate for some refactoring. But the only problem is that this object calls another object's repository. Which makes me want to leave it in the service class.
My questions are thus:
Where would you put this code?
Would you break this function up?
Where would someone who's following strict Domain-Driven design put it?
Why?
Thanks for your time.
Edit Note: Can't use an ORM on this one, so I can't use a lazy loading solution.
Edit Note2: I can't alter the constructor to take in parameters, because of how the would-be data layer instantiates the domain objects using reflection (not my idea).
Edit Note3: I don't believe that a batch object should be able to total just any list of applications, it seems like it should only be able to total applications that are in that particular batch. Otherwise, it makes more sense to me to leave the function in the service class.

You shouldn't even have access to the repositories from the domain object.
What you can do is either let the service give the domain object the appropriate info or have a delegate in the domain object which is set by a service or in the constructor.
public DomainObject(delegate getApplicationsByBatchID)
{
...
}

I'm no expert on DDD but I remember an article from the great Jeremy Miller that answered this very question for me. You would typically want logic related to your domain objects - inside those objects, but your service class would exec the methods that contain this logic. This helped me push domain specific logic into the entity classes, and keep my service classes less bulky (as I found myself putting to much logic inside the service classes like you mentioned)
Edit: Example
I use the enterprise library for simple validation, so in the entity class I will set an attribute like so:
[StringLengthValidator(1, 100)]
public string Username {
get { return mUsername; }
set { mUsername = value; }
}
The entity inherits from a base class that has the following "IsValid" method that will ensure each object meets the validation criteria
public bool IsValid()
{
mResults = new ValidationResults();
Validate(mResults);
return mResults.IsValid();
}
[SelfValidation()]
public virtual void Validate(ValidationResults results)
{
if (!object.ReferenceEquals(this.GetType(), typeof(BusinessBase<T>))) {
Validator validator = ValidationFactory.CreateValidator(this.GetType());
results.AddAllResults(validator.Validate(this));
}
//before we return the bool value, if we have any validation results map them into the
//broken rules property so the parent class can display them to the end user
if (!results.IsValid()) {
mBrokenRules = new List<BrokenRule>();
foreach (Microsoft.Practices.EnterpriseLibrary.Validation.ValidationResult result in results) {
mRule = new BrokenRule();
mRule.Message = result.Message;
mRule.PropertyName = result.Key.ToString();
mBrokenRules.Add(mRule);
}
}
}
Next we need to execute this "IsValid" method in the service class save method, like so:
public void SaveUser(User UserObject)
{
if (UserObject.IsValid()) {
mRepository.SaveUser(UserObject);
}
}
A more complex example might be a bank account. The deposit logic will live inside the account object, but the service class will call this method.

Why not pass in an IList<VendorApplication> as the parameter instead of a VendorApplicationBatch? The calling code for this presumably would come from a service which would have access to the AppRepo. That way your repository access will be up where it belongs while your domain function can remain blissfully ignorant of where that data came from.

As I understand it (not enough info to know if this is the right design) VendorApplicationBatch should contain a lazy loaded IList inside the domain object, and the logic should stay in the domain.
For Example (air code):
public class VendorApplicationBatch {
private IList<VendorApplication> Applications {get; set;};
public decimal CaculateBatchTotal()
{
if (Applications == null || Applications.Count == 0)
throw new ArgumentException("There were no applications for this batch, that shouldn't be possible");
decimal Total = 0m;
foreach (VendorApplication App in Applications)
Total += App.Amount;
return Total;
}
}
This is easily done with an ORM like NHibernate and I think it would be the best solution.

It seems to me that your CalculateTotal is a service for collections of VendorApplication's, and that returning the collection of VendorApplication's for a Batch fits naturally as a property of the Batch class. So some other service/controller/whatever would retrieve the appropriate collection of VendorApplication's from a batch and pass them to the VendorApplicationTotalCalculator service (or something similar). But that may break some DDD aggregate root service rules or some such thing I'm ignorant of (DDD novice).

Suggestions on how to map from Domain (ORM) objects to Data Transfer Objects (DTO)

The current system that I am working on makes use of Castle Activerecord to provide ORM (Object Relational Mapping) between the Domain objects and the database. This is all well and good and at most times actually works well!
The problem comes about with Castle Activerecords support for asynchronous execution, well, more specifically the SessionScope that manages the session that objects belong to. Long story short, bad stuff happens!
We are therefore looking for a way to easily convert (think automagically) from the Domain objects (who know that a DB exists and care) to the DTO object (who know nothing about the DB and care not for sessions, mapping attributes or all thing ORM).
Does anyone have suggestions on doing this. For the start I am looking for a basic One to One mapping of object. Domain object Person will be mapped to say PersonDTO. I do not want to do this manually since it is a waste.
Obviously reflection comes to mind, but I am hoping with some of the better IT knowledge floating around this site that "cooler" will be suggested.
Oh, I am working in C#, the ORM objects as said before a mapped with Castle ActiveRecord.
Example code:
By #ajmastrean's request I have linked to an example that I have (badly) mocked together. The example has a capture form, capture form controller, domain objects, activerecord repository and an async helper. It is slightly big (3MB) because I included the ActiveRecored dll's needed to get it running. You will need to create a database called ActiveRecordAsync on your local machine or just change the .config file.
Basic details of example:
The Capture Form
The capture form has a reference to the contoller
private CompanyCaptureController MyController { get; set; }
On initialise of the form it calls MyController.Load()
private void InitForm ()
{
MyController = new CompanyCaptureController(this);
MyController.Load();
}
This will return back to a method called LoadComplete()
public void LoadCompleted (Company loadCompany)
{
_context.Post(delegate
{
CurrentItem = loadCompany;
bindingSource.DataSource = CurrentItem;
bindingSource.ResetCurrentItem();
//TOTO: This line will thow the exception since the session scope used to fetch loadCompany is now gone.
grdEmployees.DataSource = loadCompany.Employees;
}, null);
}
}
this is where the "bad stuff" occurs, since we are using the child list of Company that is set as Lazy load.
The Controller
The controller has a Load method that was called from the form, it then calls the Asyc helper to asynchronously call the LoadCompany method and then return to the Capture form's LoadComplete method.
public void Load ()
{
new AsyncListLoad<Company>().BeginLoad(LoadCompany, Form.LoadCompleted);
}
The LoadCompany() method simply makes use of the Repository to find a know company.
public Company LoadCompany()
{
return ActiveRecordRepository<Company>.Find(Setup.company.Identifier);
}
The rest of the example is rather generic, it has two domain classes which inherit from a base class, a setup file to instert some data and the repository to provide the ActiveRecordMediator abilities.

I solved a problem very similar to this where I copied the data out of a lot of older web service contracts into WCF data contracts. I created a number of methods that had signatures like this:
public static T ChangeType<S, T>(this S source) where T : class, new()
The first time this method (or any of the other overloads) executes for two types, it looks at the properties of each type, and decides which ones exist in both based on name and type. It takes this 'member intersection' and uses the DynamicMethod class to emil the IL to copy the source type to the target type, then it caches the resulting delegate in a threadsafe static dictionary.
Once the delegate is created, it's obscenely fast and I have provided other overloads to pass in a delegate to copy over properties that don't match the intersection criteria:
public static T ChangeType<S, T>(this S source, Action<S, T> additionalOperations) where T : class, new()
... so you could do this for your Person to PersonDTO example:
Person p = new Person( /* set whatever */);
PersonDTO = p.ChangeType<Person, PersonDTO>();
And any properties on both Person and PersonDTO (again, that have the same name and type) would be copied by a runtime emitted method and any subsequent calls would not have to be emitted, but would reuse the same emitted code for those types in that order (i.e. copying PersonDTO to Person would also incur a hit to emit the code).
It's too much code to post, but if you are interested I will make the effort to upload a sample to SkyDrive and post the link here.
Richard

use ValueInjecter, with it you can map anything to anything e.g.
object <-> object
object <-> Form/WebForm
DataReader -> object
and it has cool features like: flattening and unflattening
the download contains lots of samples

You should automapper that I've blogged about here:
http://januszstabik.blogspot.com/2010/04/automatically-map-your-heavyweight-orm.html#links
As long as the properties are named the same on both your objects automapper will handle it.

My apologies for not really putting the details in here, but a basic OO approach would be to make the DTO a member of the ActiveRecord class and have the ActiveRecord delegate the accessors and mutators to the DTO. You could use code generation or refactoring tools to build the DTO classes pretty quickly from the AcitveRecord classes.

Actually I got totally confussed now.
Because you are saying: "We are therefore looking for a way to easily convert (think automagically) from the Domain objects (who know that a DB exists and care) to the DTO object (who know nothing about the DB and care not for sessions, mapping attributes or all thing ORM)."
Domain objects know and care about DB? Isn't that the whole point of domain objects to contain business logic ONLY and be totally unaware of DB and ORM?....You HAVE to have these objects? You just need to FIX them if they contain all that stuff...that's why I am a bit confused how DTO's come into picture
Could you provide more details on what problems you're facing with lazy loading?