💼 Managing Transactions in .NET Core Applications

🔄 What Is a Transaction?

A transaction is a sequence of operations that are treated as a single unit of work. It must either complete fully or not at all to maintain data consistency and integrity.

Common use case: Saving a customer and their order details—both should succeed or fail together.

⚙️ Key Principles of Transactions (ACID)

Principle Description

Atomicity All operations succeed or none do

Consistency Data remains valid before and after the transaction

Isolation Transactions don’t interfere with each other

Durability Once committed, the changes are permanent

✅ Using Transactions in .NET Core with Entity Framework Core

.NET Core provides transaction support via Entity Framework Core (EF Core) or ADO.NET.

🧱 1. Implicit Transactions (SaveChanges)

EF Core automatically wraps SaveChanges() in a transaction if multiple changes are detected.

csharp

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using (var context = new AppDbContext())

{

    context.Users.Add(new User { Name = "Alice" });

    context.Orders.Add(new Order { Item = "Book", Quantity = 2 });

    context.SaveChanges(); // Atomic operation

}

🔧 2. Explicit Transactions with EF Core

Use this when you want full control or need to span multiple SaveChanges() calls.

csharp

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using (var context = new AppDbContext())

{

    using var transaction = context.Database.BeginTransaction();

    try

    {

        context.Users.Add(new User { Name = "Bob" });

        context.SaveChanges();

        context.Orders.Add(new Order { Item = "Pen", Quantity = 1 });

        context.SaveChanges();

        transaction.Commit();

    }

    catch

    {

        transaction.Rollback();

        // Log or handle the error

    }

}

🗄️ 3. Transactions Using ADO.NET (Manual Approach)

Use this when working with raw SQL commands.

csharp

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using (var connection = new SqlConnection("YourConnectionString"))

{

    connection.Open();

    var transaction = connection.BeginTransaction();

    try

    {

        var command = connection.CreateCommand();

        command.Transaction = transaction;

        command.CommandText = "INSERT INTO Users (Name) VALUES ('Charlie')";

        command.ExecuteNonQuery();

        command.CommandText = "INSERT INTO Orders (Item, Quantity) VALUES ('Notebook', 3)";

        command.ExecuteNonQuery();

        transaction.Commit();

    }

    catch

    {

        transaction.Rollback();

        // Handle or log error

    }

}

🚀 4. Distributed Transactions (Multiple Databases)

For advanced scenarios (e.g., across multiple databases or services), use:

TransactionScope (with caution in .NET Core—it has limited support on Linux)

Outbox pattern or Saga pattern in microservices

External tools like NServiceBus or MassTransit

🧪 5. Testing and Validation

Always write unit and integration tests to verify rollback behavior.

Use tools like EF Core InMemory or SQL Server LocalDB for safe testing.

🛡️ Best Practices

Tip Description

Use async versions Prefer SaveChangesAsync() for scalability

Keep transactions short Reduce locks and increase performance

Handle exceptions carefully Catch and log transaction failures

Monitor performance Use logging or APM tools like App Insights

✅ Summary

Use implicit transactions when you can; they’re simple and safe.

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Use explicit transactions for multi-step workflows.

Use ADO.NET or distributed solutions for complex scenarios.

Follow best practices to avoid locking, data loss, or performance issues.