A database transaction is a unit of work: a set of CRUD operations performed during one business transaction. At the application level, it tracks affected objects, coordinates persistence, and helps resolve concurrency problems. section 4.3.4
In an ASP.NET Core API, one DbContext instance commonly represents one unit of work within a single HTTP request/response lifecycle. This arrangement supports the transaction’s atomicity, consistency, isolation, and durability properties. section 4.3.4
A typical request uses the transaction boundary as follows:
- A controller receives an HTTP request and obtains ApplicationDbContext through dependency injection. section 4.3.4 section 5.2
- The action builds a query against the context, which represents the requested database operation. section 5.2
- Executing the query retrieves database records, creates entities, and returns them to the action for JSON serialization. section 4.3.4 section 5.2
Board-game retrieval
BoardGamesController stores an injected ApplicationDbContext in a private field. Its Get() action replaces manually generated data with a query against _context.BoardGames; ToArray() executes the query and returns the resulting BoardGame entities. section 5.2
builder.Services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(options =>
options.UseSqlServer(
builder.Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection"))
);
Register ApplicationDbContext with dependency injection and configure it to use SQL Server, establishing the context used for request-scoped work. section 4.3.4
