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

• ​Ubuntu 18.04.02 x64 or Windows 10 Pro x64 Build 1903.

  • ​Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) is also supported.

• ​.NET Core 3.0.100-preview6-012264 SDK. Make sure to select the SDK download for your platform, and not the runtime download.

• Enough RAM to load database of targeted size.

• It's recommended to have at least two CPU cores.

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.