C# - passing objects between business and data access layer

Abhilash J A

Hello everyone,

I building a MVC 4 project with Entity Framework 6. There is have business layer and data access layer also both are have its own model classes.

If I want to get list of table values from sql table -> DAL -> BAL -> Controller, which is the fastest and best way retrieve list from each other without using foreach and automapper.dll ?

Eg:

DAL-->

public class ProductsDAL
{
public List GetProductCategoryTree()
{
using (var context = new ReboxEntities())
{
return context.ProductCategories.ToList();
}
}
}

BAL-->

public class ProductCategoryBL
{
public List GetProductCategories()
{
ProductsDAL objProduct = new ProductsDAL();
IList lsRes = new List();
lsRes = objProduct.GetProductCategoryTree();
List categories = new List();
foreach (var item in lsRes)
{
categories.Add(new ProductCategoryDM{
idProductCategory = item.idProductCategory,
ProductCategoryName = item.ProductCategoryName,
ProductCategoryDescription = item.ProductCategoryDescription,
idParentCategoryProduct = item.idParentCategoryProduct,
AlternateNamesToSearch = item.AlternateNamesToSearch,
LevelID = item.LevelID,
CompletePathName = item.CompletePathName,
PCImage = item.PCImage
});
}
return categories;
}

then Controller,

/*Inside Viewmodel folder*/
public class SearchVM
{
public List Res = new List();
public SearchVM()
{
Res = new List();
}
}
/*End*/
[HttpPost]
public ActionResult Search()
{
ProductCategoryBL objProduct = new ProductCategoryBL();
List lsRes = new List();
SearchVM vm = new SearchVM();
lsRes = objProduct.GetProductCategories();
vm.Res = lsRes;
return PartialView("_searchresult", vm);
}

Here is using too many foreach loop for mapping. How can I improve this? Please help me.

3 Replies

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Catcher Wong9y ago
Accepted answer
Hi abhilash ,

To map layers like this situation , maybe there are two ways :
one way is using the loop to map,but it's inconvenient
the other way is using the third part components such as automapper.

For more details about mapping , you can learn much from the source of automapper !!

https://github.com/AutoMapper/AutoMapper
Abhilash J A9y ago
Hello catcher,

Thanks for reply me.

Actually, inside dal I can use linq for get list of data. How can I map those layer each other?, that was my confusion.
Catcher Wong9y ago
public class ProductsDAL
{
    public List GetProductCategoryTree()
    {
        using (var context = new ReboxEntities())
        {
            return context.ProductCategories.Select(item => new ProductCategoryDM
            {
                idProductCategory = item.idProductCategory,
                ProductCategoryName = item.ProductCategoryName,
                ProductCategoryDescription = item.ProductCategoryDescription,
                idParentCategoryProduct = item.idParentCategoryProduct,
                AlternateNamesToSearch = item.AlternateNamesToSearch,
                LevelID = item.LevelID,
                CompletePathName = item.CompletePathName,
                PCImage = item.PCImage
            }).ToList();
        }
    }
}
without automapper , you can select what you want in DAL?