Repository and Unit of Work Pattern - General Introduction and Usefulness in Enterprise Projects

Discover why Repository and Unit of Work patterns are essential for structuring enterprise projects and ensuring maintainable code.

Summary

This article is part of a series covering the Repository and Unit of Work patterns:

Why Are These Patterns Essential?

In enterprise projects, maintaining clean and scalable code is crucial to tackling the increasing complexity of applications. Design patterns play a key role by offering proven solutions to recurring problems.

Among these, the Repository and Unit of Work patterns are particularly useful for structuring and simplifying data access while improving transaction management. They also help ensure consistency and maintainability, especially in complex architectures. In this article, we will explore these two patterns, their benefits, and how to implement them effectively in C# with Entity Framework Core.

Quick Reminder: What Is a Design Pattern?

A design pattern is a general, reusable solution to a common problem in a given context.

Why Use Design Patterns?

  • Standardisation: Patterns provide a shared terminology that facilitates communication between developers.

  • Reduced Complexity: They bring a clear structure for organising code.

  • Testability: They make components more isolated and therefore easier to test.

Examples of useful patterns in C#:

  • Repository: An abstraction for accessing data, for instance, by hiding the interaction logic with a database and providing a simple interface for CRUD operations.

  • Factory: A centralised way to create objects, ideal for instantiating complex objects without exposing their creation logic.

  • Observer: Automatic notification between objects, for example, to update a user interface when the underlying data changes.

The Repository and Unit of Work patterns, which we will detail, are particularly suited for projects that use relational or NoSQL databases.

Next: Details of the Repository Pattern