Using Dapper with SQL Server

Question

I am currently developing an application using C# (Visual Studio 2019)and SQL Server 2017 using Dapper. Below is a routine that works fine right now to execute a stored procedure in SQL Server.

The C# code uses the MVVM framework, and I currently have 60 model classes to map the tables in the SQL Server database. There are about 120 stored procedures that produce results that are mapped to the model classes using Dapper.

Consider the following code snippet as pseudocode (but it actually works to execute the stored procedure and return the correct results).

public List<SomeDefinedModel> ExecuteSQLSPROC(string SPROCName, SqlParameter[] parameters)
{
    using (IDbConnection connection = new System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection(DBHelper.CNNVal("MYLocalServer")))
    {
        System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand command = new System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand();
        command.Connection = (SqlConnection)connection;
        command.CommandText = SPROCName;

        DynamicParameters parms = new DynamicParameters();

        for (int i = 0; i < parameters.Length; i++)
        {
            var parmname = parameters[i].ParameterName;
            var parmvalue = parameters[i].Value;
            parms.Add(parmname, parmvalue);
        }

        var output = connection.Query<SomeDefinedModel>(SPROCName, parms, commandType: CommandType.StoredProcedure).ToList();

        return output;
    }
}

I want to change this routine so the routine so that it method signature is as follows:

public List<TheNameOfTheModelToMap> ExecuteSQLSPROC(string SPROCName, SqlParameter[] parameters, TheNameOfTheModelToMap)

That is, the designation of the model to which Dapper is to map is a variable - it can be any valid model. I have define the variable TheNameOfTheModelToMap as type object, and the return value as var, as List<object> , and so forth. They produce errors because of this syntax:

var output = connection.Query<TheNameOfTheModelToMap>(SPROCName, parms, commandType: CommandType.StoredProcedure).ToList();

I want to comply with the principles of DRY and code just one method to accept ANY model designation, ANY stored procedure designation and have Dapper map the query results. Any possibilities?

Answer 1

I think you just need one generic method like so:

public List<T> ExecuteSQLSPROC<T>(string SPROCName, SqlParameter[] parameters)
{
    using (var connection = new System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection(DBHelper.CNNVal("MYLocalServer")))
    {
        var parms = new DynamicParameters();
        foreach (var parameter in parameters)
            parms.Add(parameter.ParameterName, parameter.Value);

        var output = connection.Query<T>(
                SPROCName,
                parms,
                commandType: CommandType.StoredProcedure
            )
            .ToList();

        return output;
    }
}

And every other method becomes a specialized invoke of it:

public List<SomeDefinedModel> ExecuteOneProc(SqlParameter[] parameters)
  => ExecuteSQLSPROC<SomeDefinedModel>("OneProcName", parameters);

Is this ok for your use case? If you need one procedure for single values (which would not use Dapper's Query method) you would just create specialized variations of the ExecuteSQLSPROC like ExecuteStoredProcSingleRow or something along those lines.