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Introduction

Starcounter 3.0.0 Alpha 20190701, codenamed Nova, is available for public preview.

Please make sure to read our End User License Agreement for Starcounter Software.

Starcounter 3.0 main focus

  • Support Linux & Windows operating systems.

  • Provide seamless integration with standard .NET Core applications:

    • .NET Core Console applications.

    • .NET Core Web applications with Kestrel web server.

    • .NET Core Desktop applications.

  • Support development experience with standard dotnet CLI tooling.

Requirements

Note: Due to the preview state of this release we cannot provide any guarantees, but we monitor our GitHub: Starcounter/Home issue tracker and stand ready to assist with any potential issues.

Installation

Note: This section assumes that you have required operating system and .NET Core 3.0.100-preview6-012264 SDK installed.

Binaries

  • Create a folder for Starcounter binaries, for example Starcounter.3.0.0-alpha-20190701.

  • Download Starcounter.3.0.0-alpha-20190701.zip into the folder.

  • Unzip downloaded archive into the folder.

Ubuntu 18.04

Install prerequisites.

sudo apt-get install wget unzip
sudo apt-get install libaio1

Starcounter relies on a specific version of SWI-Prolog.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:swi-prolog/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install swi-prolog-nox=7.\*

Download and unpack Starcounter binaries.

cd $HOME
mkdir Starcounter.3.0.0-alpha-20190701
cd Starcounter.3.0.0-alpha-20190701
wget https://starcounter.io/Starcounter/Starcounter.3.0.0-alpha-20190701.zip
unzip Starcounter.3.0.0-alpha-20190701.zip

Application

Create an application folder and initialize a .NET Core console application.

mkdir StarcounterConsoleSample
cd StarcounterConsoleSample

dotnet new console

All the following commands shall be executed from the StarcounterConsoleSample folder.

Setup NuGet to consume Starcounter packages feeds.

Create nuget.config file and add required package sources:

  • local, points to the Starcounter binaries folder.

  • Starcounter, points to https://www.myget.org/F/starcounter/api/v2.

NuGet tips:

  • Default NuGet.config file can be created with dotnet new nugetconfig command.

  • For more information on how to work with NuGet configurations, see this post by Microsoft.

End file should look similar to this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <packageSources>
    <clear />
    <add key="local" value="[Starcounter.3.0.0-alpha-20190701]" />
    <add key="Starcounter" value="https://www.myget.org/F/starcounter/api/v2" />
    <add key="nuget.org" value="https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json" />
  </packageSources>
</configuration>

Visual Studio Setup:

Visual Studio requires manual NuGet package sources configuration. For this go to the Tools → Options → NuGet Package Manager → Package Sources menu then add local and Starcounter feeds.

Note: Replace the [Starcounter.3.0.0-alpha-20190701] value with actual path to the folder with unzipped Starcounter binaries.

Add Starcounter.Nova.App package reference

dotnet add package Starcounter.Nova.App --version 3.0.0-*

Add minimal Starcounter database access

Replace content of the Program.cs file with the following:

using System;
using System.Linq;
using Starcounter.Nova;
using Starcounter.Nova.Hosting;

namespace StarcounterConsoleSample
{
    [Database]
    public abstract class Person
    {
        public abstract string Name { get; set; }
    }

    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            using (var host = new AppHostBuilder().Build())
            {
                host.Start();

                string name = Db.Transact<string>(() =>
                {
                    var p = Db.SQL<Person>
                    (
                        "SELECT p FROM StarcounterConsoleSample.Person p WHERE Name = ?", 
                        "Jane"
                    ).FirstOrDefault();

                    if (p == null)
                    {
                        p = Db.Insert<Person>();
                        p.Name = "Jane";
                    }

                    return p.Name;
                });

                Console.WriteLine(name);
            }
        }
    }
}

For ASP.NET Core application:

Update Startup.cs class with the following:

using Starcounter.Nova.Hosting;
using Starcounter.Nova.Extensions.DependencyInjection;

namespace StarcounterMvcSample
{
    public class Startup
    {
        /* Some other code here. */

        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            /* Some other service declarations here. */

            services.AddStarcounter(new AppHostBuilder());
        }

        /* Some other code here. */
    }
}

Note: Starcounter works with Kestrel Web Server only. IIS and IIS Express are not yet supported.

Install Starcounter dotnet CLI tool and create database

dotnet new tool-manifest
dotnet tool install Starcounter.Star.Tool --version 3.0.0-*

dotnet star new

Now there will be a Starcounter database located in the StarcounterConsoleSample/.stardata folder.

Start database and application

Start the database.

dotnet star start

Run the application.

dotnet run

Running with Visual Studio Code

  • Open Visual Studio Code in the application folder (from command line: code ./).

  • Restore dependencies Visual Studio Code asks for.

  • Click Ctrl + F5 to start the application.

Everything should run out of the box.

Running with Visual Studio 2019

  • Update Visual Studio 2019 to the latest version using Visual Studio Installer.

  • We checked version 16.1.5 (as of July 3 2019).

  • Open Tools → Options and enter "preview" in the search box.

  • In Environment → Preview Features check Use previews of the .NET Core SDK and restart Visual Studio.

  • Open StarcounterConsoleSample.csproj from Visual Studio.

  • Set the debug path in Project properties → Debug → Working directory to the path of the project. E.g. C:\StarcounterSamples\StarcounterConsoleSample.

  • Click Ctrl + F5 to start the application.

It is also possible to set working directory in the .csproj file by adding the following:

<PropertyGroup>
  <RunWorkingDirectory>$(MSBuildProjectDirectory)</RunWorkingDirectory>
</PropertyGroup>

Extra information

Before asking questions or reporting issues, please read these few lines, and maybe you will find an answer for your question.

  • Currently there is no database tooling available except the bare minimum of dotnet star new and dotnet star start commands.

  • Currently it is only possible to start the database manually.

  • Currently it is only possible to store the database files in the default .stardata folder.

  • Currently it is not supported to have a dot (.) in the application name. For example app may use CompanyApplication as it's name, but Company.Application is not supported.

  • Starting from Starcounter 3.0.0 beta, all required packages will be uploaded to one of the popular providers, such as NuGet.org, MyGet.org or GitHub Package Registry.

  • Base namespace will be changed from Starcounter.Nova to just Starcounter.

  • It is recommended to define all database classes and properties as abstract to reduce memory footprint when compared to virtual. Support for virtual properties might be removed in the future.

  • Packing with dotnet pack and publishing with dotnet publish are not yet implemented for applications which use Starcounter database.

NextDatabase classes

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