.NET 7 & C# 11 Minimal API: Mastering Clean Architecture for Modern RESTful Services

A feature-rich and robust RESTful API for managing movies and their ratings, built using ASP.NET Core, C# 11, .NET 7, PostgreSQL, and Dapper ORM. The API includes advanced features like pagination, sorting and validation, as well as dependency injection and separation of concerns. This project is inspired by Nick Chapsas' course, "From Zero to Hero: REST APIs in .NET".

Features

• Create, read, update, and delete (CRUD) operations for movies
• Rate a movie for a specific user
• Retrieve movie ratings for a user
• Pagination and sorting for movie listings
• Validation for incoming requests to ensure data integrity
• Dependency injection for extensibility and maintainability
• Separation of concerns to facilitate easier code management and testing

Getting Started

These instructions will get you a copy of the project up and running on your local machine for development and testing purposes.

Prerequisites

• .NET 7.0 SDK or later: Download from here
• PostgreSQL: Setup via Docker Desktop and docker-compose using the compose file included in the project

Setting up PostgreSQL using Docker

1. Install Docker Desktop if you don't have it already.

2. Navigate to the Movies.Application directory:

cd Movies.Application

3. Use the included docker-compose.yml file to set up PostgreSQL:

Path: Movies.Application/docker-compose.yml

version: '3.9'

services:

  db:
    image: postgres:latest
    restart: always
    environment:
      - POSTGRES_USER=pguser
      - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=changeme
      - POSTGRES_DB=movies
    ports:
      - '5432:5432'

4. Run the following command to start the PostgreSQL container:

docker-compose up -d

This will set up a PostgreSQL instance with the required configuration. Make sure to adjust the connection string in appsettings.json accordingly.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/stephanbail/net7-minimal-api-clean-architecture.git

2. Change to the project directory:

cd .NET-7-Minimal-API-Clean-Architecture

3. Set up the PostgreSQL database and adjust the connection string in appsettings.json accordingly.

4. Run the following command to restore the required packages:

dotnet restore

5. Run the following command to build the project:

dotnet build

6. Run the following command to start the API:

dotnet run --project Movies.Api

7. Open your browser or preferred API testing tool (e.g., Postman) and navigate to the API endpoints.

Usage

The API exposes the following endpoints:

• GET /api/movies - Get all movies (paginated)
• GET /api/movies/{id} - Get a movie by ID
• POST /api/movies - Create a new movie
• PUT /api/movies/{id} - Update a movie
• DELETE /api/movies/{id} - Delete a movie
• POST /api/movies/{id}/rating - Rate a movie
• GET /api/users/{userId}/ratings - Get movie ratings for a user

Refer to the API documentation for detailed information on request and response formats.

Using the Postman Collection

The project includes a Postman collection that helps you interact with the API endpoints for testing purposes. The collection is located in the project repository under the following path:

Helpers/REST_API.postman_collection.json

The collection contains organized groups of requests for various operations like Identity, Movies, and Ratings. Follow these steps to import and use the Postman collection:

1. Download and install Postman if you don't have it already.
2. Clone the GitHub repository or download the Helpers/REST_API.postman_collection.json file to your local machine.
3. Open Postman and click on the "Import" button located in the top-left corner.
4. In the Import window, click on "Upload Files" and select the REST_API.postman_collection.json file you downloaded in step 2, then click "Import" to add the collection to your Postman workspace.
5. Once imported, you will see the collection named "API" in the left sidebar, containing three folders: Identity, Movies, and Ratings.

Follow the instructions provided in the previous response to generate a token, make authenticated requests, and interact with the API using the Postman collection.

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to Nick Chapsas for his excellent course on building REST APIs in .NET. Nick is a Microsoft MVP for Developer Technologies with years of experience in Software Engineering and Engineering Management. He has worked for some of the world's largest companies, building systems that serve millions of users and tens of thousands of requests per second. Nick is also a YouTube content creator, producing free educational content for C# and .NET. Check out his course here.

About the Author

Stephan Bail is a passionate Microsoft Azure architect & consultant with extensive experience working with blue-chip organizations. Based in Munich, Germany, Stephan enjoys advising mid-sized to large businesses and leveraging his expertise to ensure their cloud journey is successful.

• Personal Website: stephanbail.com
• GitHub: github.com/stephanbail

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to submit pull requests or open issues to help improve the project.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Contact

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out to Stephan Bail via stephanbail.com or on GitHub.