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C# method syntax similar to object initializer

We have an extension method that accepts an action to initialize an object.
Is there some way to improve the syntax of such a call:
public static T NewRow<T>(this IUow uow, Action<T> action();
// this does internally call
public T NewRow<T>(Action<T> initializer) where T : IBo
{
T bo = NewRow<T>();
initializer.Invoke(bo);
return bo;
}
uow.NewRow<ICustomer>(customer => {
customer.Name = "Zzz";
customer.Info = "Abc"
);
I thought maybe I could use something similar to the object initializer syntax?
uow.NewRow<ICustomer>({
Name: "Zzz",
Info: "Abc"
});
The idea is to get rid of customer.* = ... in every line.
I would be happy for any tip.
INFO:
We are using the latest C# language version
The solution should support IntelliSense (e.g., Name and Info should be proposed to the user)
Edit:
I can't use a constructor because I only have an interface. No class/implementation. The framework behind creates the object to the given interface T bo = NewRow<T>();. Which actual object gets created is decided by the framework
Also initializers like { Name: myOtherVariable.FirstName } should be possible

an Action could be everything, not just a simple assignment. So if a client chosed to make a function-call instead, there literally is nothing to shortcut here. See this for example:
uow.NewRow<IWhatever>(() => Console.WriteLine("tataaaa"););
So no, what you want isn't possible.
However you could create some kind of EventsArgs that hold your names and use those within your NewRow-method. There's no need for an action if all those callbacks should actually be just assignement-calls alltogether.
uow.NewRow<ICustomer>(new MyArgs {
Name = "Zzz",
Info = "Abc"
});
And within NewRow:
public T NewRow<T>(MyArgs args) where T : IBo
{
customer.Name = args.Name;
customer.Info = args.Info;
}

The instance of entity type 'Item' cannot be tracked because another instance with the same key value for {'Id'} is already being tracked

I am aware that such question has already been asked, but solution did not help me.
[Fact]
public async Task UpdateAsync()
{
string newTitle = "newTitle1";
int newBrandId = 3;
var item = await storeContext.Items.AsNoTracking().FirstOrDefaultAsync();
item.BrandId = newBrandId;
item.Title = newTitle;
storeContext.Entry(item).State = EntityState.Detached;
await service.UpdateAsync(item); // exception inside
var updatedItem = await storeContext.Items.AsNoTracking().FirstOrDefaultAsync();
Assert.Equal(newTitle, updatedItem.Title);
Assert.Equal(newBrandId, updatedItem.BrandId);
}
public async Task UpdateAsync(T entity)
{
_dbContext.Entry(entity).State = EntityState.Modified; // exception when trying to change the state
await _dbContext.SaveChangesAsync();
}
Message: System.InvalidOperationException : The instance of entity type 'Item' cannot be tracked because another instance with the same key value for {'Id'} is already being tracked. When attaching existing entities, ensure that only one entity instance with a given key value is attached. Consider using 'DbContextOptionsBuilder.EnableSensitiveDataLogging' to see the conflicting key values.
interesting that exception is the same even if no item retreived from db, like so
//var item = await storeContext.Items.AsNoTracking().FirstOrDefaultAsync();
var item = new Item()
{
Id = 1,
BrandId = newBrandId,
CategoryId = 1,
MeasurementUnitId = 1,
StoreId = 1,
Title = newTitle
};

Had the same problem with EF core 2.2. I never experianced this with other applications.
Ended up rewriting all my update functions somehow like this:
public bool Update(Entity entity)
{
try
{
var entry = _context.Entries.First(e=>e.Id == entity.Id);
_context.Entry(entry).CurrentValues.SetValues(entity);
_context.SaveChanges();
return true;
}
catch (Exception e)
{
// handle correct exception
// log error
return false;
}
}

Alexandar's answer, which was to disable tracking completely, solved my issue, but I got worried since I didn't know what this would do to the rest of my application. So I went to the Microsoft docs and found this:
You should not disable change tracking if you want to manipulate entity instances and persist those changes to the database using SaveChanges().
This method sets the default behavior for all contexts created with these options, but you can override this behavior for a context instance using QueryTrackingBehavior or on individual queries using the AsNoTracking(IQueryable) and AsTracking(IQueryable) methods.
So the solution for me was to disable tracking only when needed. So I solved my issue by using this in the other part of my code that retrieved the same entry from the database:
var entry = await context
.SomeDbTable
.AsNoTracking() // this is what you're looking for
.Find(id);

Numerous issues I've been running into have one nasty root.
In a nutshell: I've learned the hard way why dbContext is scoped rather than singleton. Here is Store type, but the issue was the same.
Here is simplified test initialization code
public TestBase()
{
services = new ServiceCollection();
storeContext = StoreContextMock.ConfigureStoreContext(services, output);
serviceProvider = services.BuildServiceProvider();
}
public static StoreContext ConfigureStoreContext(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddDbContext<StoreContext>(c =>
c.UseInMemoryDatabase(Guid.NewGuid().ToString()).UseQueryTrackingBehavior(QueryTrackingBehavior.NoTracking));
var serviceProvider = services.BuildServiceProvider();
var storeContext = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<StoreContext>();
storeContext .Stores.Add(new Store { Title = "John's store", Address = "NY", Description = "Electronics best deals", SellerId = "john#mail.com" });
storeContext .Stores.Add(new Store { Title = "Jennifer's store", Address = "Sydney", Description = "Fashion", SellerId = "jennifer#mail.com" });
storeContext .SaveChanges();
return storeContext ;
}
I reread error and finally noticed the main word
The instance of entity type 'Store' cannot be tracked because another instance with the same key value for {'Id'} is already being tracked
So there has to be some orphan tracked instance preventing me from working with store. I did not save any references to s1 or s2, so it must be storeContext storing references on inserted objects even after leaving scope of their declaration and initialization. That's why I was unable update variables normally and also why my 'queried' from db objects had all their navigation properties assigned (lazy loading has little to do with this). The following code resolved all my issues.
public static StoreContext ConfigureStoreContext(IServiceCollection services)
{
services.AddDbContext<StoreContext>(c =>
c.UseInMemoryDatabase(Guid.NewGuid().ToString()).UseQueryTrackingBehavior(QueryTrackingBehavior.NoTracking));
var serviceProvider = services.BuildServiceProvider();
var storeContext = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<StoreContext>();
var s1 = new Store { Title = "John's store", Address = "NY", Description = "Electronics best deals", SellerId = "john#mail.com" };
var s2 = new Store { Title = "Jennifer's store", Address = "Sydney", Description = "Fashion", SellerId = "jennifer#mail.com" }
storeContext .Stores.Add(s1);
storeContext .Stores.Add(s2);
storeContext .Entry<Store>(s1).State = EntityState.Detached;
storeContext .Entry<Store>(s2).State = EntityState.Detached;
storeContext .SaveChanges();
return storeContext ;
}
That is one of many reasons why dbContext should be limited by a scope.
Thanks for the hint.

For me was this the solution:
public void Update(int id, T obj)
{
var entry = table.Find(id);
_context.Entry(entry).CurrentValues.SetValues(obj);
}
Based on the solution Bryan gave. I think I use newer version of EF/Automapping. This works for me.

I got some similar error when I wanted to update data, and I found out I could fix it by clearing the property context. Here is what a did. It's not the same problem but it's the same error, so I think it can be fixed the same way. Clearing the context seems to be a good solution because it's the reason of whats happening.
context.ChangeTracker.Clear();
context.Cliente.Update(cliente);
context.SaveChanges();

I had same problem while I was copying some records in database by Entity Framework and changing one column that was other's entity key.
Tracking mode change did not fix the issue.
The issue was fixed by properly setting primary key in EntityTypeConfiguration, to contain the changed value here described as x.EntityTwoKey.
builder.HasKey(x => new { x.EntityOneKey, x.EntityTwoKey });

In my case I hit this error when running SaveChanges twice inside of two IFs statements. I moved the SaveChanges outside of those two blocks of code. Just a side note in my service layer it is querying the data with AsNoTracking();
if (user.SendPaymentStatus)
{
user.SendPaymentStatus = false;
saveChanges = true;
//_userService.SaveChanges(user, false);
msg = GetPaymentHTML(user.MasterNodeName, user.Payee, DbMasterNode.LastPaidUtc);
Framework.Email.SendEmail(email, "MasterNode Payment - " + user.MasterNodeName, msg);
}
if (user.SendNodeStatus)
{
user.SendNodeStatus = false;
saveChanges = true;
//_userService.SaveChanges(user, false);
msg = GetStatusHTML(user.MasterNodeName, user.Payee, DbMasterNode.CurrentStatus, DbMasterNode.LastSeenUtc);
Framework.Email.SendEmail(email, "MasterNode Down - " + user.MasterNodeName, msg);
}
if (saveChanges)
{
user.SendPaymentStatus = false;
_userService.SaveChanges(user, false);
}

I was getting the same problem when was trying to update the value. then i found the proble i was using this.
services.AddDbContext<StudentContext>(option => option.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("databasename")),ServiceLifetime.Singleton);
then i remove lifetime and it worked well for me.
services.AddDbContext<StudentContext>(option => option.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("databasename")));

In my case above issue was resolved after I set primary key column Id as an Identity column.

We recently run into the same issue when adding multiple new items with identity column id set to 0. We are using OracleDataAccess client for EF core 3, we set the sequence number for the new entities when we do saveChanges(), but it errors out when we try to add() if there's already another item with id=0.
The fix we did is making sure the configuration for the identity column is correct:
1.) Set the key
builder.HasKey(t => t.Id);
2.) Set the database generate option correctly
[Column("ID"), DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
public virtual int Id { get; set; }
or fluent equivalent:
builder.Property(t => t.Id)
.ValueGeneratedOnAdd();
We did not do second step correctly and was setting as DatabaseGeneratedOption.None, then EF core failed on add.

Getting duplicates when testing "one-to-many" relationship?

I'm running into some issues testing Fluent NHibernate's persistence. I'm not sure if this is simply poor understanding on my part or improper expectations of the test. If so, does anyone have any advice on how best to set up a Unit Test for this part of the DAL?
I have a pair of classes Client and Facility with a one-to-many relationship:
One: Client can have Many Facility
Using this FluentNHibernate's mapping structure, I'd expected they should look like this:
public class ClientMapping : DataMapping<Client>
{
public ClientMapping()
{
HasMany(client => client.Facilities)
.Inverse()
.Cascade
.All();
}
}
public class FacilityMapping : DataMapping<Facility>
{
public FacilityMapping()
{
References(fac => fac.Owner);
}
}
I followed FNH's advice on creating tests such as below but when running it- I get a Client table with 2 Clients and a Facility table with two different Ids, even though I'm passing in a single object.
[Test]
public void CanCorrectlyCreateFacilityTable()
{
_client = new Client {Name = "Preston"};
new PersistenceSpecification<Facility>(session, new DataEqualityComparer())
.CheckProperty(f => f.Id, 1)
.CheckProperty(f => f.Name, _facility1.Name)
.CheckReference(f => f.Owner, _client)
.VerifyTheMappings();
new PersistenceSpecification<Facility>(session, new DataEqualityComparer())
.CheckProperty(f => f.Id, 2)
.CheckProperty(f => f.Name, _facility2.Name)
.CheckReference(f => f.Owner, _client)
.VerifyTheMappings();
}
Closest q/a I've found is those below but even when running the Client test first, I seem to get the same result (likely because the database state resets itself for each test):
Cascade persist creates duplicate rows?
Hibernate - one to Many relationship

It turns out my expectations were incorrect. The Persistence Specification test simply tests where data hits the database - hence, it'll send new items each time it's run.
To test whether the mappings are cascading data correctly I needed to write a test like below:
[Test]
public void CanSaveAndLoadFacilityMapping()
{
object id;
object id2;
using (var trans = _session.BeginTransaction())
{
id = _session.Save(_facility1);
id2 = _session.Save(_facility2);
trans.Commit();
}
_session.Clear();
using (var trans = _session.BeginTransaction())
{
var facility = _session.Get<Facility>(id);
var facility2 = _session.Get<Facility>(id2);
Assert.AreEqual(facility.Name, _facility1.Name);
Assert.AreEqual(facility.Owner.Name, _client.Name);
Assert.AreEqual(facility2.Owner.Name, _client.Name);
Assert.AreEqual(facility.Owner.Id, facility2.Owner.Id);
trans.Dispose();
}
}

ASP.NET Security: single entry of role names

We're building an ASP.NET app, and have a requirement to use the corporate LDAP system (Siteminder) for authentication (upside: no login dialogs). Roles are created in the LDAP tool, and users are assigned to the roles by userland managers (read: the structure has to be easily understood). Currently, all apps that use the system use a dual-entry process whereby the roles identified in the app are hand-entered into the LDAP system and users are assigned, then app functions are assigned to their role mirrors in an app-based control panel. This works, but it bothers me that dual-entry is required.
What I would like to achieve is something where the app queries the LDAP system to get a list of roles that are assigned to the app (which is identified in the LDAP system) and populate the role:function control panel with them. This part seems really straightforward. However, I lose clarity when it comes to figuring out what to put in the Authorize attribute:
[Authorize(Roles = "Admin, Moderator")]
would become... what?
[Authorize(LoadedRoles(r => r.FindAll("some expression that describes the roles that have a particular permission")))]
I'm seriously into blue sky territory here. I read this question, and liked - from an architectural standpoint - the answer that suggested making the permissions the roles. But that might not be acceptable to the userland managers that needed to manage users. On the other hand, this question turns things into non-string resources, but I can't conceive of how to translate that into "roles that have this sort of function included".
Any suggestions?
Update:
Based on the advice of #venerik below, I've made some progress. For the time being, I'm encapsulating everything in the [AuthorizeFunctionAttribute], and will farm the individual pieces out where they belong later. To that end, I created three variables:
private IList<KeyValuePair<long, string>> Roles;
private IList<KeyValuePair<long, string>> Functions;
private IList<RoleFunction> RoleFunctions;
...then put static data in them:
Roles = new ICollection<KeyValuePair<long, string>>();
Roles.Add(KeyValuePair<long, string>(1, "Basic User"));
Roles.Add(KeyValuePair<long, string>(2, "Administrator"));
Functions = new ICollection<KeyValuePair<long, string>>();
Functions.Add(KeyValuePair<long,string>(1,"List Things"));
Functions.Add(KeyValuePair<long,string>(2,"Add Or Edit Things"));
Functions.Add(KeyValuePair<long,string>(3,"Delete Things"));
...and finally bound them together (in a complicated manner that lays the groundwork for the future):
RoleFunctions = new IList<RoleFunction>();
RoleFunctions.Add(
new RoleFunction
{
RoleId = Roles.Where( r => r.Value == "Basic User").FirstOrDefault().Key,
FunctionId = Functions.Where( f => f.Value == "List Things" ).FirstOrDefault().Key,
isAuthorized = true
},
new RoleFunction
{
RoleId = Roles.Where( r => r.Value == "Administrator").FirstOrDefault().Key,
FunctionId = Functions.Where( f => f.Value == "Add or Edit Things" ).FirstOrDefault().Key,
isAuthorized = true
},
// More binding...
);
I feel good about this so far. So I went researching AuthorizeCore to see what I needed to do there. However, per the comment at the bottom of the page, it's not very helpful. I more or less get that at the end, the method needs to return a bool value. And I get that I need to check that one of the User.Roles array fits the permission that's passed in through [AuthorizeFunction("List Things")].
Update (again):
I've got the following code, which seems like it will do what I need (one method needs fleshing out):
/// <summary>An authorization attribute that takes "function name" as a parameter
/// and checks to see if the logged-in user is authorized to use that function.
/// </summary>
public class AuthorizeFunctionAttribute : AuthorizeAttribute
{
private IList<KeyValuePair<long, string>> Roles;
private IList<KeyValuePair<long, string>> Functions;
private IList<RoleFunction> RoleFunctions;
public string Function { get; private set; }
public AuthorizeFunctionAttribute(string FunctionName)
{
Function = FunctionName;
Roles = SetApplicationRoles();
Functions = SetApplicationFunctions();
RoleFunctions = SetRoleFunctions();
}
protected virtual bool AuthorizeCore(HttpContextBase httpContext)
{
bool userIsAuthorized = false;
foreach (string ur in GetUserRoles(httpContext.Current.Request.Headers["SM_USER"]))
{
long roleId = Roles.Where( sr => sr.Value == ur )
.First().Key;
long functionId = Functions.Where( sf => sf.Value == Function )
.First().Key;
// If any role is authorized for this function, set userIsAuthorized to true.
// DO NOT set userIsAuthorized to false within this loop.
if (RoleFunctions.Where(rf => rf.RoleId == roleId && rf.FunctionId == functionId)
.First().isAuthorized)
{
userIsAuthorized = true;
}
}
return userIsAuthorized;
}
Previously I didn't know enough about the underlying bits of creating a custom attribute to get out of my own way. However, this MSDN article told me what should have been obvious to me in the beginning: build it yourself. So, once I get the GetUserRoles() method put together, I should be underway.

I think you can solve this using a custom AuthorizeAttribute. In a project I worked close to they used that to access Active Directory (as described in this answer).
In your case it would look something like:
public class AuthorizeWithLDAPAttribute(string functionName) : AuthorizeAttribute
{
protected virtual bool AuthorizeCore(HttpContextBase httpContext)
{
// check LDAP to verify that user has
// a role that's linked to `functionName`
}
}
Next you can use this attribute on your controllers and/or methods:
[AuthorizeWithLDAP("functionName1")]
public class BlogController : Controller
{
....
[AuthorizeWithLDAP("functionName2")]
public ViewResult Index()
{
return View();
}
}
The controller is now only accessible to users whose role are linked to functionName1 and the method is only accessible to users whose role are linked to functionName1 and functionName2

Entity Framework Code First and SQL Server 2012 Sequences

I was in the middle of implementing a database audit trail whereby CRUD operations performed through my controllers in my Web API project would serialize the old and new poco's and store their values for later retrieval (historical, rollback, etc...).
When I got it all working, I did not like how it made my controllers look during a POST because I ended up having to call SaveChanges() twice, once to get the ID for the inserted entity and then again to commit the audit record which needed to know that ID.
I set out to convert the project (still in its infancy) to use sequences instead of identity columns. This has the added bonus of further abstracting me from SQL Server, though that is not really an issue, but it also allows me to reduce the number of commits and lets me pull that logic out of the controller and stuff it into my service layer which abstracts my controllers from the repositories and lets me do work like this auditing in this "shim" layer.
Once the Sequence object was created and a stored procedure to expose it, I created the following class:
public class SequentialIdProvider : ISequentialIdProvider
{
private readonly IService<SequenceValue> _sequenceValueService;
public SequentialIdProvider(IService<SequenceValue> sequenceValueService)
{
_sequenceValueService = sequenceValueService;
}
public int GetNextId()
{
var value = _sequenceValueService.SelectQuery("GetSequenceIds #numberOfIds", new SqlParameter("numberOfIds", SqlDbType.Int) { Value = 1 }).ToList();
if (value.First() == null)
{
throw new Exception("Unable to retrieve the next id's from the sequence.");
}
return value.First().FirstValue;
}
public IList<int> GetNextIds(int numberOfIds)
{
var values = _sequenceValueService.SelectQuery("GetSequenceIds #numberOfIds", new SqlParameter("numberOfIds", SqlDbType.Int) { Value = numberOfIds }).ToList();
if (values.First() == null)
{
throw new Exception("Unable to retrieve the next id's from the sequence.");
}
var list = new List<int>();
for (var i = values.First().FirstValue; i <= values.First().LastValue; i++)
{
list.Add(i);
}
return list;
}
}
Which simply provides two ways to get IDs, a single and a range.
This all worked great during the first set of unit tests but as soon as I started testing it in a real world scenario, I quickly realized that a single call to GetNextId() would return the same value for the life of that context, until SaveChanges() is called, thus negating any real benefit.
I am not sure if there is a way around this short of creating a second context (not an option) or going old school ADO.NET and making direct SQL calls and use AutoMapper to get to the same net result. Neither of these are appeal to me so I am hoping someone else has an idea.

Don't know if this might help you, but this is how I did my audit log trail using code first.
The following is coded into a class inheriting from DbContext.
in my constructor I have the following
IObjectContextAdapter objectContextAdapter = (this as IObjectContextAdapter);
objectContextAdapter.ObjectContext.SavingChanges += SavingChanges;
This is my saving changes method wired up previously
void SavingChanges(object sender, EventArgs e) {
Debug.Assert(sender != null, "Sender can't be null");
Debug.Assert(sender is ObjectContext, "Sender not instance of ObjectContext");
ObjectContext context = (sender as ObjectContext);
IEnumerable<ObjectStateEntry> modifiedEntities = context.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(EntityState.Modified);
IEnumerable<ObjectStateEntry> addedEntities = context.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(EntityState.Added);
addedEntities.ToList().ForEach(a => {
//Assign ids to objects that don't have
if (a.Entity is IIdentity && (a.Entity as IIdentity).Id == Guid.Empty)
(a.Entity as IIdentity).Id = Guid.NewGuid();
this.Set<AuditLogEntry>().Add(AuditLogEntryFactory(a, _AddedEntry));
});
modifiedEntities.ToList().ForEach(m => {
this.Set<AuditLogEntry>().Add(AuditLogEntryFactory(m, _ModifiedEntry));
});
}
And these are the methods used previosly to build up the audit log details
private AuditLogEntry AuditLogEntryFactory(ObjectStateEntry entry, string entryType) {
AuditLogEntry auditLogEntry = new AuditLogEntry() {
EntryDate = DateTime.Now,
EntryType = entryType,
Id = Guid.NewGuid(),
NewValues = AuditLogEntryNewValues(entry),
Table = entry.EntitySet.Name,
UserId = _UserId
};
if (entryType == _ModifiedEntry) auditLogEntry.OriginalValues = AuditLogEntryOriginalValues(entry);
return auditLogEntry;
}
/// <summary>
/// Creates a string of all modified properties for an entity.
/// </summary>
private string AuditLogEntryOriginalValues(ObjectStateEntry entry) {
StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
entry.GetModifiedProperties().ToList().ForEach(m => {
stringBuilder.Append(String.Format("{0} = {1},", m, entry.OriginalValues[m]));
});
return stringBuilder.ToString();
}
/// <summary>
/// Creates a string of all modified properties' new values for an entity.
/// </summary>
private string AuditLogEntryNewValues(ObjectStateEntry entry) {
StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();
for (int i = 0; i < entry.CurrentValues.FieldCount; i++) {
stringBuilder.Append(String.Format("{0} = {1},",
entry.CurrentValues.GetName(i), entry.CurrentValues.GetValue(i)));
}
return stringBuilder.ToString();
}
Hopefully this might point you into a direction that might help you solve your problem.