Apps and Services with .NET 8: Build practical projects with Blazor, .NET MAUI, gRPC, GraphQL, and other enterprise technologies. 2 Ed

Preface....9

Where to find the code solutions....10

What this book covers....11

What you need for this book....16

Get in touch....18

Introducing Apps and Services with .NET....22

Introducing this book and its contents....24

Companion books to continue your learning journey....24

What you will learn in this book....26

My learning philosophy....27

Fixing my mistakes....27

Finding the solution code on GitHub....28

Project naming and port numbering conventions....28

Treating warnings as errors....31

App and service technologies....33

Understanding .NET....33

Building websites and apps using ASP.NET Core....34

Building web and other services....35

Windows Communication Foundation....37

Common service principles....38

Summary of choices for services....38

Building Windows-only apps....41

Understanding legacy Windows application platforms....41

Understanding modern .NET support for legacy Windows platforms....43

Building cross-platform mobile and desktop apps....44

.NET MAUI alternatives....45

Understanding the Uno platform....45

Understanding Avalonia....46

Setting up your development environment....46

Choosing the appropriate tool and application type for learning....48

Using Visual Studio 2022 for general development....48

Using Visual Studio Code for cross-platform development....49

Using GitHub Codespaces for development in the cloud....50

What I used....50

JetBrains Rider and its warnings about boxing....51

Deploying cross-platform....52

Downloading and installing Visual Studio 2022....53

Visual Studio 2022 keyboard shortcuts....54

Downloading and installing Visual Studio Code....55

Installing other extensions....57

Managing Visual Studio Code extensions at the command prompt....60

Understanding Microsoft Visual Studio Code versions....61

Visual Studio Code keyboard shortcuts....61

Consuming Azure resources....62

Using other project templates....64

Installing additional template packs....66

Exploring top-level programs, functions, and namespaces....67

What is automatically generated for a local function?....68

Writing static functions in a separate Program class file....69

What is automatically generated for a static function?....70

Making good use of the GitHub repository for this book....72

Raising issues with the book....72

Giving me feedback....73

Downloading solution code from the GitHub repository....74

Where to go for help....75

Reading documentation on Microsoft Learn....75

Getting help for the dotnet tool....75

AI tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot....78

ChatGPT....78

GitHub Copilot....81

Subscribing to the official .NET blog and announcements....82

Practicing and exploring....82

Exercise 1.1 – Test your knowledge....82

Exercise 1.2 – Review the online-only sections....83

Exercise 1.3 – Explore topics....84

Summary....84

Managing Relational Data Using SQL Server....86

Understanding modern databases....86

Using a sample relational database....87

Connecting to a SQL Server database....89

Installing and setting up SQL Server locally....91

Installing SQL Server Developer Edition for Windows....92

Visual Studio Code extension for working with SQL Server....94

Creating the Northwind sample database locally....95

Setting up Azure SQL Database....97

JetBrains Rider tool window for working with SQL Server....102

Creating the Northwind sample database in the cloud....102

Managing data with Transact-SQL....104

T-SQL data types....105

Documenting with comments....106

Declaring variables....106

Specifying data types....106

Controlling flow....107

Operators....107

Data Manipulation Language (DML)....107

DML for adding, updating, and deleting data....114

Data Definition Language (DDL)....115

Managing data with low-level APIs....117

Understanding the types in ADO.NET....118

Understanding the types in ADO.NET....118

Creating a console app for working with ADO.NET....121

Executing queries and working with data readers using ADO.NET....128

Outputting statistics....131

Working with ADO.NET asynchronously....133

Executing stored procedures using ADO.NET....134

Outputting streams with a data reader....139

Generating objects with a data reader....141

Managing data with Dapper....143

Dapper connection extension methods....143

Querying using Dapper....145

Cleaning up data resources....148

Removing Azure resources....149

Practicing and exploring....149

Exercise 2.1 – Test your knowledge....149

Exercise 2.2 – Explore topics....149

Exercise 2.3 – Alternatives for storing secrets....150

Summary....150

Building Entity Models for SQL Server Using EF Core....152

Managing data with EF Core....152

Understanding Entity Framework Core....154

Scaffolding models using an existing database....154

Setting up the dotnet-ef tool....155

Defining EF Core models....157

Using EF Core conventions to define the model....157

Using EF Core annotation attributes to define the model....158

Using the EF Core Fluent API to define the model....161

Understanding data seeding with the Fluent API....162

Defining the Northwind database model....162

Querying the Northwind model....171

Controlling the tracking of entities....174

A scenario using default tracking....177

The same scenario using no tracking....178

The same scenario using no tracking with identity resolution....179

Summary of tracking....180

Mapping inheritance hierarchies with EF Core....181

Table-per-hierarchy (TPH) mapping strategy....182

Table-per-type (TPT) mapping strategy....183

Table-per-concrete-type (TPC) mapping strategy....185

Configuring inheritance hierarchy mapping strategies....186

Example of hierarchy mapping strategies....188

Building a reusable entity data model....198

Creating a class library for entity models using SQL Server....198

Creating a class library for the data context using SQL Server....201

Calculated properties on entity creation....204

Creating a test project to check the integration of the class libraries....207

Writing unit tests for entity models....208

Running unit tests using Visual Studio 2022....210

Running unit tests using Visual Studio Code....211

Practicing and exploring....212

Exercise 3.1 – Test your knowledge....212

Exercise 3.2 – Practice benchmarking ADO.NET against EF Core....213

Exercise 3.3 – Review performance choices....213

Exercise 3.4 – Explore topics....213

Summary....214

Managing NoSQL Data Using Azure Cosmos DB....216

Understanding NoSQL databases....216

Cosmos DB and its APIs....217

Document modeling....218

Consistency levels....221

Hierarchy of components....223

Throughput provisioning....224

Partition strategies....226

Data storage design....226

Migrating data to Cosmos DB....227

Creating Cosmos DB resources....227

Using an emulator on Windows to create Azure Cosmos DB resources....228

Using the Azure portal to create Azure Cosmos DB resources....235

Using a .NET app to create Azure Cosmos DB resources....239

Manipulating data with the Core (SQL) API....245

Performing CRUD operations with the Cosmos SQL API....246

Understanding SQL queries....257

Exploring other SQL queries with Cosmos DB....260

Exploring server-side programming....261

Implementing user-defined functions....261

Implementing stored procedures....263

Cleaning up Azure resources....267

Practicing and exploring....267

Exercise 4.1 – Test your knowledge....268

Exercise 4.2 – Practice data modeling and partitioning....268

Exercise 4.3 – Explore topics....268

Exercise 4.4 – Download cheat sheets....269

Exercise 4.5 – Explore the Gremlin API for Cosmos DB....269

Exercise 4.6 – Explore NoSQL databases....269

Summary....270

Multitasking and Concurrency....271

Understanding processes, threads, and tasks....271

Running tasks asynchronously....273

Running multiple actions synchronously....274

Running multiple actions asynchronously using tasks....277

Starting tasks....278

Waiting for tasks....279

Using wait methods with tasks....280

Continuing with another task....281

Nested and child tasks....283

Wrapping tasks around other objects....286

Synchronizing access to shared resources....288

Accessing a resource from multiple threads....289

Applying a mutually exclusive lock to a conch....292

Understanding the lock statement....293

Avoiding deadlocks....294

Synchronizing events....297

Making CPU operations atomic....298

Applying other types of synchronization....300

Understanding async and await....301

Improving responsiveness for console apps....302

Working with async streams....303

Improving responsiveness for GUI apps....305

Improving scalability for web applications and web services....313

Common types that support multitasking....313

Using await in catch blocks....314

Practicing and exploring....315

Exercise 5.1 – Test your knowledge....315

Exercise 5.2 – Explore topics....315

Exercise 5.3 – Read more about parallel programming....316

Summary....316

Using Popular Third-Party Libraries....317

Which third-party libraries are most popular?....317

What is covered in my books....319

Working with images....320

Generating grayscale thumbnails....321

ImageSharp packages for drawing and the web....326

Working with text and numbers using Humanizer....326

Working with text....327

Humanizer case transformations....327

Humanizer spacing conversions....329

Humanizer’s Singularize and Pluralize methods....329

Exploring text manipulations with a console app....330

Working with numbers....335

Working with dates and times....338

Logging with Serilog....340

Structured event data....340

Serilog sinks....341

Logging to the console and a rolling file with Serilog....342

Mapping between objects....344

Defining models for an AutoMapper configuration....346

Defining mappers for an AutoMapper configuration....348

Performing tests for an AutoMapper configuration....349

Performing live mappings between models....352

Making fluent assertions in unit testing....354

Making assertions about strings....354

Making assertions about collections and arrays....356

Making assertions about dates and times....357

Validating data....358

Understanding the built-in validators....358

Performing custom validation....359

Customizing validation messages....359

Defining a model and validator....360

Testing the validator....362

Validating data with ASP.NET Core....366

Generating PDFs....366

Using QuestPDF on Apple silicon Macs....367

Creating class libraries to generate PDF documents....367

Creating a console app to generate PDF documents....370

Practicing and exploring....373

Exercise 6.1 – Test your knowledge....374

Exercise 6.2 – Explore topics....374

Summary....375

Handling Dates, Times, and Internationalization....376

Working with dates and times....377

Specifying date and time values....377

Formatting date and time values....382

Date and time calculations....387

Microseconds and nanoseconds....388

Globalization with dates and times....389

Complexities of Daylight Saving Time (DST)....392

Localizing the DayOfWeek enum....393

Working with only a date or a time....395

Getting date/time formatting information....396

Unit testing with a time provider....397

Working with time zones....403

Understanding DateTime and TimeZoneInfo....403

Exploring DateTime and TimeZoneInfo....406

Working with cultures....412

Detecting and changing the current culture....413

Temporarily using the invariant culture....420

Localizing your user interface....422

Defining and loading resources....423

Testing globalization and localization....427

Working with Noda Time....436

Important concepts and defaults in Noda Time....437

Converting between Noda Time date/time types....441

Exploring Node Time in a console app....442

Unit testing and JSON serialization with Noda Time....446

Practicing and exploring....446

Exercise 7.1 – Test your knowledge....446

Exercise 7.2 – Explore topics....447

Exercise 7.3 – Learn from expert Jon Skeet....447

Summary....447

Building and Securing Web Services Using Minimal APIs....449

Building web services using ASP.NET Core Minimal APIs....449

Benefits of Minimal API-based web services....450

Understanding Minimal API route mappings....451

Understanding parameter mapping....452

Understanding return values....453

Documenting a Minimal APIs service....454

Setting up an ASP.NET Core Web API project....455

Testing web services using Swagger....464

Testing web services with code editor tools....467

Excluding paths from OpenAPI documentation....472

Visual Studio 2022 scaffolding for Minimal APIs....473

Relaxing the same origin security policy using CORS....474

Configuring HTTP logging for the web service....475

Creating a web page JavaScript client....477

Creating a .NET client....482

Understanding CORS....486

Enabling CORS for specific endpoints....488

Understanding other CORS policy options....489

Preventing denial of service attacks using rate limiting....490

Rate limiting using the AspNetCoreRateLimit package....491

Creating a rate-limited console client....496

Rate limiting using ASP.NET Core middleware....501

Improving startup time and resources using native AOT....502

Limitations of native AOT....503

Reflection and native AOT....504

Native AOT for ASP.NET Core....504

Requirements for native AOT....506

Enabling native AOT for a project....506

Enabling JSON serialization with native AOT....506

Building a native AOT project....507

Publishing a native AOT project....514

Understanding identity services....518

JWT bearer authorization....518

Authenticating service clients using JWT bearer authentication....519

Practicing and exploring....523

Exercise 8.1 – Test your knowledge....523

Exercise 8.2 – Review Microsoft HTTP API design policy....524

Exercise 8.3 – Explore topics....524

Exercise 8.4 – Exposing data via the web using OData services....525

Exercise 8.5 – Auth0 project templates....525

Summary....525

Caching, Queuing, and Resilient Background Services....527

Understanding service architecture....527

What parts of a system are slowest?....528

Numbers every (developer) should know....528

Caching with ASP.NET Core....530

General caching guidelines....530

Building a controller-based Web API service....531

Caching objects using in-memory caching....538

Caching objects using distributed caching....542

A new abstraction for distributed caching....547

Caching web responses using HTTP caching....548

Fault tolerance with Polly....554

Understanding retry and circuit breaker patterns....554

Defining and executing policies....555

Defining wait intervals between retries....556

Applying policies to HTTP clients....557

Adding random faults to the web service....558

Building an MVC project to call the faulty web service....558

Implementing the Retry pattern for transient fault handling....565

Queuing with RabbitMQ....568

Setting up RabbitMQ using Docker....570

Sending messages to a queue using an MVC website....573

Consuming message from a queue using a console app....578

Implementing long-running background services....584

Building a worker service....584

Processing queued message using a worker service....587

Executing code on a timed schedule....590

Building a website to host Hangfire....593

Scheduling jobs using Hangfire....599

Practicing and exploring....602

Exercise 9.1 – Test your knowledge....603

Exercise 9.2 – Explore topics....603

Exercise 9.3 – Replace the Distributed Memory Cache with another distributed cache implementation....604

Exercise 9.4 – Replace Hangfire with Quartz.NET....605

Exercise 9.5 – Review the Reliable Web App pattern....605

Summary....605

Building Serverless Nanoservices Using Azure Functions....607

Understanding Azure Functions....607

Azure Functions triggers and bindings....609

NCRONTAB expressions....610

Azure Functions versions and languages....616

Azure Functions worker models....618

Azure Functions hosting plans....619

Azure Storage requirements....620

Testing locally with Azurite....620

Azure Functions authorization levels....621

Azure Functions support for dependency injection....622

Installing Azure Functions Core Tools....622

Building an Azure Functions project....623

Using Visual Studio 2022....623

Using Visual Studio Code....624

Using the func CLI....625

Reviewing the Azure Functions project....626

Implementing a simple function....628

Testing a simple function....630

Responding to timer and resource triggers....632

Implementing a Timer triggered function....632

Testing the Timer triggered function....636

Implementing a function that works with queues and BLOBs....640

Testing the function that works with queues and BLOBs....646

Publishing an Azure Functions project to the cloud....649

Using Visual Studio 2022 to publish....649

Using Visual Studio Code to publish....652

Cleaning up Azure Functions resources....653

Practicing and exploring....653

Exercise 10.1 – Test your knowledge....653

Exercise 10.2 – Explore topics....654

Summary....654

Broadcasting Real-Time Communication Using SignalR....655

Understanding SignalR....655

The history of real-time communication on the web....656

AJAX....656

WebSocket....657

Introducing SignalR....658

Azure SignalR Service....659

Designing method signatures....659

Building a live communication service using SignalR....660

Defining some shared models....661

Enabling a server-side SignalR hub....663

Building a web client using the SignalR JavaScript library....668

Adding a chat page to the MVC website....669

Testing the chat feature....674

Building a .NET console app client....679

Creating a .NET client for SignalR....679

Testing the .NET console app client....681

Streaming data using SignalR....682

Defining a hub for streaming....683

Creating a .NET console app client for streaming....685

Testing the streaming service and client....687

Practicing and exploring....689

Exercise 11.1 – Test your knowledge....690

Exercise 11.2 – Explore topics....690

Summary....690

Combining Data Sources Using GraphQL....692

Understanding GraphQL....692

GraphQL query document format....693

Requesting fields....694

Specifying filters and arguments....695

Understanding other GraphQL capabilities....696

Understanding the ChilliCream GraphQL platform....696

Building a service that supports GraphQL....698

Defining the GraphQL schema for Hello World....700

Writing and executing GraphQL queries....703

Naming GraphQL queries aka operations....704

Understanding field conventions....705

Defining GraphQL queries for EF Core models....707

Adding support for EF Core....707

Exploring GraphQL queries with Northwind....709

Implementing paging support....719

Implementing filtering support....723

Implementing sorting support....727

Building .NET clients for a GraphQL service....729

Choosing GraphQL request formats....729

Understanding the GraphQL response format....729

Using REST Client as a GraphQL client....730

Using an ASP.NET Core MVC project as a GraphQL client....733

Testing the .NET client....742

Creating a console app client using Strawberry Shake....744

Implementing GraphQL mutations....750

Adding mutations to the GraphQL service....751

Exploring the add product mutation....753

Implementing updates and deletes as mutations....756

Implementing GraphQL subscriptions....763

Adding a subscription and topic to the GraphQL service....764

Exploring subscribing to a topic....766

Practicing and exploring....769

Exercise 12.1 – Test your knowledge....770

Exercise 12.2 – Explore topics....770

Exercise 12.3 – Practice building .NET clients....770

Summary....771

Building Efficient Microservices Using gRPC....772

Understanding gRPC....774

How gRPC works....774

Defining gRPC contracts with .proto files....774

gRPC benefits....778

gRPC limitations....778

Types of gRPC methods....779

Microsoft’s gRPC packages....780

Building a gRPC service and client....780

Building a Hello World gRPC service....781

Project file item configuration....786

Building a Hello World gRPC client....787

Testing a gRPC service and client....793

Implementing gRPC for an EF Core model....794

Implementing the gRPC service....794

Implementing the gRPC client....797

Taking gRPC further....802

Improving a gRPC service with native AOT publish....802

Getting request and response metadata....807

Adding a deadline for higher reliability....809

Handling dates, times, and decimal numbers....813

Defining a custom decimal type and using date/time types....814

Implementing the product and employee gRPC services....819

Adding product and employee gRPC clients....820

Testing decimal, date, and bytes handling....824

Implementing interceptors and handling faults....825

Adding a client-side interceptor....825

Exception and transient fault handling....828

Implementing gRPC JSON transcoding....831

Enabling gRPC JSON transcoding....831

Testing gRPC JSON transcoding....834

Comparing with gRPC-Web....835

Practicing and exploring....836

Exercise 13.1 – Test your knowledge....836

Exercise 13.2 – Compare gRPC services with HTTP APIs....836

Exercise 13.3 – Explore topics....836

Summary....837

Building Web User Interfaces Using ASP.NET Core....838

Setting up an ASP.NET Core MVC website....838

Creating an ASP.NET Core MVC website....841

Exploring the default ASP.NET Core MVC website....842

Understanding visitor registration....844

Reviewing an MVC website project structure....845

Referencing an EF Core class library and registering a data context....848

Defining web user interfaces with Razor views....849

Understanding Razor views....849

Prototyping with Bootstrap....854

Understanding Razor syntax and expressions....855

Understanding HTML Helper methods....856

Defining a strongly-typed Razor view....858

Localizing and globalizing with ASP.NET Core....861

Creating resource files....862

If you are using Visual Studio 2022....863

If you are using Visual Studio Code....864

Localizing Razor views with an injected view localizer....866

Understanding the Accept-Language header....870

Defining web user interfaces with Tag Helpers....870

Comparing HTML Helpers and Tag Helpers....871

Exploring the Anchor Tag Helper....872

Exploring the Cache Tag Helpers....879

Exploring the Environment Tag Helper....881

Understanding how cache busting with Tag Helpers works....884

Exploring Forms-related Tag Helpers....884

Output caching....887

Output caching endpoints....888

Output caching MVC views....890

Practicing and exploring....892

Exercise 14.1 – Test your knowledge....892

Exercise 14.2 – Practice building user interfaces with Boostrap....893

Exercise 14.3 – Explore topics....894

Summary....894

Building Web Components Using Blazor....895

Understanding Blazor....896

Blazor hosting models....896

Blazor components....898

Blazor routing to page components....900

How to pass route parameters....902

Setting parameters from a query string....902

Route constraints for parameters....903

Base component classes....904

Blazor layouts....906

How to navigate Blazor routes to page components....907

CSS and JavaScript isolation....908

Building Blazor components....908

Reviewing the new Blazor project template....909

Using Bootstrap icons....915

Referencing an EF Core class library and registering a data context....916

Building a static server rendered component for data....918

Building a component with server interactivity....920

Building a Blazor progress bar component....922

Building a Blazor dialog box component....924

Building a Blazor alert component....929

Building a Blazor data component....932

Making the component....932

Making the component a routable page component....933

Getting entities into a component by building a web service....935

Getting entities into a component by calling the web service....939

Practicing and exploring....943

Exercise 15.1 – Test your knowledge....943

Exercise 15.2 – Practice building Blazor components....944

Exercise 15.3 – Practice building an IndexedDB interop service....944

Exercise 15.4 – Explore topics....944

Exercise 15.5 – Explore Blazor WebAssembly topics....945

Exercise 15.6 – Explore Progressive Web Apps with Blazor....945

Exercise 15.7 – Leveraging Open Source Blazor Component Libraries....945

Summary....946

Building Mobile and Desktop Apps Using .NET MAUI....947

Understanding XAML....948

Simplifying code using XAML....949

.NET MAUI namespaces....950

Type converters....952

Choosing between .NET MAUI controls....952

Markup extensions....954

Understanding .NET MAUI....955

.NET MAUI and Xamarin support....957

Development tools for mobile first, cloud first....957

Installing .NET MAUI workloads manually....958

.NET MAUI user interface component categories....961

Shell control....961

ListView control....962

Entry and Editor controls....962

.NET MAUI handlers....962

Writing platform-specific code....963

Building mobile and desktop apps using .NET MAUI....964

Creating a virtual Android device for local app testing....964

Enabling Windows developer mode....967

Creating a .NET MAUI project....967

Adding shell navigation and more content pages....971

Implementing more content pages....979

Using shared resources....982

Defining resources to share across an app....983

Referencing shared resources....984

Changing shared resources dynamically....985

Using data binding....994

Binding to elements....994

Practicing and exploring....996

Exercise 16.1 – Test your knowledge....996

Exercise 16.2 – Explore topics....996

Exercise 16.3 – Implementing Model-View-ViewModel for .NET MAUI....997

Exercise 16.4 – Integrating .NET MAUI apps with Blazor and native platforms....997

Summary....997

Epilogue....999

Cloud-native development using .NET Aspire....999

Introducing the Survey Project Challenge....1001

Third edition coming in December 2025....1001

Next steps on your C# and .NET learning journey....1002

Companion books to continue your learning journey....1002

Other books to take your learning further....1004

Good luck!....1005

Index....1007

Bestselling author Mark Price is back to guide you through the latest and most common technologies a .NET developer should know: Blazor Full Stack, ASP.NET Core MVC, ASP.NET Core Minimal APIs, .NET MAUI, gRPC, GraphQL, SQL Server, Cosmos DB, SignalR, Azure Functions, and more!

Key Features

• Use specialized libraries to improve all aspects of your apps, including performance, security, and localization
• Harness the full potential of .NET using cloud-native data stores like Cosmos DB, and unlock scalability, performance, and resilience in your service implementations
• Unleash the capabilities of Blazor Full Stack and.NET MAUI to develop stunning, truly cross-platform apps for web and mobile

Book Description

Elevate your practical C# and .NET skills to the next level with this new edition of Apps and Services with .NET 8.

With chapters that put a variety of technologies into practice, including Web API, gRPC, GraphQL, and SignalR, this book will give you a broader scope of knowledge than other books that often focus on only a handful of .NET technologies. You'll dive into the new unified model for Blazor Full Stack and leverage .NET MAUI to develop mobile and desktop apps.

This new edition introduces the latest enhancements, including the seamless implementation of web services with ADO.NET SqlClient's native Ahead-of-Time (AOT) support. Popular library coverage now includes Humanizer and Noda Time. There's also a brand-new chapter that delves into service architecture, caching, queuing, and robust background services.

By the end of this book, you'll have a wide range of best practices and deep insights under your belt to help you build rich apps and efficient services.

What you will learn

• Familiarize yourself with a variety of technologies to implement services, such as gRPC and GraphQL
• Store and manage data locally and cloud-natively with SQL Server and Cosmos DB
• Use ADO.NET SqlClient to implement web services with native AOT publish support
• Leverage Dapper for improved performance over EF Core
• Implement popular third-party libraries such as Serilog, FluentValidation, Humanizer, and Noda Time
• Explore the new unified hosting model of Blazor Full Stack

Who this book is for

This book is for .NET developers interested in exploring more specialized libraries and implementation fundamentals behind building services and apps.

You'll need to know your way around .NET and C# quite well before you can dive in, so if you want to work your way up to this book, you can pick up Mark's other .NET book, C# 12 and .NET 8 - Modern Cross-Platform Development Fundamentals, first.