Book Image

Apps and Services with .NET 7

By : Mark J. Price

Book Image

Apps and Services with .NET 7

By: Mark J. Price

Overview of this book

Apps and Services with .NET 7 is for .NET 6 and .NET 7 developers who want to kick their C# and .NET understanding up a gear by learning the practical skills and knowledge they need to build real-world applications and services. It covers specialized libraries that will help you monitor and improve performance, secure your data and applications, and internationalize your code and apps. With chapters that put a variety of technologies into practice, including Web API, OData, gRPC, GraphQL, SignalR, and Azure Functions, this book will give you a broader scope of knowledge than other books that often focus on only a handful of .NET technologies. It covers the latest developments, libraries, and technologies that will help keep you up to date. You’ll also leverage .NET MAUI to develop mobile apps for iOS and Android as well as desktop apps for Windows and macOS.

Preface

Where to find the code solutions

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Introducing Apps and Services with .NET

Introducing Apps and Services with .NET

Introducing this book and its contents

App and service technologies

Setting up your development environment

Using an analyzer to write better code

What’s new in C# and .NET?

Making good use of the GitHub repository for this book

Where to go for help

Practicing and exploring

Free Chapter

Managing Relational Data Using SQL Server

Managing Relational Data Using SQL Server

Understanding modern databases

Managing data with Transact-SQL

Managing data with low-level APIs

Managing data with EF Core

Mapping inheritance hierarchies with EF Core

Building a reusable entity data model

Cleaning up data resources

Practicing and exploring

Managing NoSQL Data Using Azure Cosmos DB

Managing NoSQL Data Using Azure Cosmos DB

Understanding NoSQL databases

Creating Cosmos DB resources

Manipulating data with Core (SQL) API

Manipulating graph data with Gremlin API

Cleaning up Azure resources

Practicing and exploring

Benchmarking Performance, Multitasking, and Concurrency

Benchmarking Performance, Multitasking, and Concurrency

Understanding processes, threads, and tasks

Monitoring performance and resource usage

Running tasks asynchronously

Synchronizing access to shared resources

Understanding async and await

Practicing and exploring

Implementing Popular Third-Party Libraries

Implementing Popular Third-Party Libraries

Which third-party libraries are most popular?

Working with images

Logging with Serilog

Mapping between objects

Making fluent assertions in unit testing

Validating data

Generating PDFs

Practicing and exploring

Observing and Modifying Code Execution Dynamically

Observing and Modifying Code Execution Dynamically

Working with reflection and attributes

Working with expression trees

Creating source generators

Practicing and exploring

Handling Dates, Times, and Internationalization

Handling Dates, Times, and Internationalization

Working with dates and times

Working with time zones

Working with cultures

Practicing and exploring

Protecting Your Data and Applications

Protecting Your Data and Applications

Understanding the vocabulary of protection

Encrypting and decrypting data

Generating random numbers

Authenticating and authorizing users

Practicing and exploring

Building and Securing Web Services Using Minimal APIs

Building and Securing Web Services Using Minimal APIs

Building web services using ASP.NET Core Minimal APIs

Relaxing the same origin security policy using CORS

Preventing denial-of-service attacks using rate limiting

Understanding identity services

Practicing and exploring

Exposing Data via the Web Using OData

Exposing Data via the Web Using OData

Understanding OData

Building a web service that supports OData

Testing OData services using Visual Studio Code extensions

Versioning OData controllers

Enabling entity inserts, updates, and deletes

Building clients for OData services

Practicing and exploring

Combining Data Sources Using GraphQL

Combining Data Sources Using GraphQL

Understanding GraphQL

Building a service that supports GraphQL

Defining GraphQL queries for EF Core models

Building a .NET client for a GraphQL service

Implementing GraphQL mutations

Practicing and exploring

Building Efficient Microservices Using gRPC

Building Efficient Microservices Using gRPC

Understanding gRPC

Building a gRPC service and client

Implementing gRPC for an EF Core model

Implementing gRPC JSON transcoding

Practicing and exploring

Broadcasting Real-Time Communication Using SignalR

Broadcasting Real-Time Communication Using SignalR

Understanding SignalR

Building a live communication service using SignalR

Building a web client using the SignalR JavaScript library

Building a .NET console app client

Streaming data using SignalR

Practicing and exploring

Building Serverless Nanoservices Using Azure Functions

Building Serverless Nanoservices Using Azure Functions

Understanding Azure Functions

Building an Azure Functions project

Responding to timer and resource triggers

Publishing an Azure Functions project to the cloud

Cleaning up Azure Functions resources

Practicing and exploring

Building Web User Interfaces Using ASP.NET Core

Building Web User Interfaces Using ASP.NET Core

Setting up an ASP.NET Core MVC website

Defining web user interfaces with Razor views

Localizing and globalizing with ASP.NET Core

Defining web user interfaces with Tag Helpers

Practicing and exploring

Building Web Components Using Blazor WebAssembly

Building Web Components Using Blazor WebAssembly

Understanding Blazor

Building Blazor components

Building a Blazor data component

Implementing caching using local storage

Building Progressive Web Apps

Practicing and exploring

Leveraging Open-Source Blazor Component Libraries

Leveraging Open-Source Blazor Component Libraries

Understanding open-source Blazor component libraries

Exploring Radzen Blazor components

Building a web service for Northwind entities

Practicing and exploring

Building Mobile and Desktop Apps Using .NET MAUI

Building Mobile and Desktop Apps Using .NET MAUI

Understanding XAML

Understanding .NET MAUI

Building mobile and desktop apps using .NET MAUI

Using shared resources

Using data binding

Understanding MVVM

Consuming a web service from a mobile app

Practicing and exploring

Integrating .NET MAUI Apps with Blazor and Native Platforms

Integrating .NET MAUI Apps with Blazor and Native Platforms

Building .NET MAUI Blazor Hybrid apps

Integrating with native platforms

Using third-party control libraries

Practicing and exploring

Introducing the Survey Project Challenge

Introducing the Survey Project Challenge

What have you learned in this book?

Why a survey project?

What are the product requirements?

Promote your abilities

Epilogue

Second edition coming November 2023

Next steps on your C# and .NET learning journey

Index

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Generating PDFs

One of the most common requests I get when teaching C# and .NET is, “What open-source library is available to generate PDF files?”

There are many licensed libraries for generating PDF files, but over the years it has been difficult to find cross-platform open-source ones. QuestPDF is the latest example.

QuestPDF uses SkiaSharp and that has implementations for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. The console app that you create in this section to generate PDFs is therefore cross-platform. But on an Apple Silicon Mac, like my Mac mini M1, I had to install the x64 version of .NET 7 and start the project using dotnet run -a x64. This tells the .NET SDK to use the x64 architecture, otherwise the SkiaSharp libraries give an error because they have not yet been built to target Arm64.

Creating class libraries to generate PDF documents

Let’s see an example of QuestPDF in action. You will create three projects:

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