Added more content to the MPJ data store draft

source/_drafts/the-data-store.md

@@ -32,16 +32,30 @@ As we ended up using 3 different server environments over the course of this pro
 
 The only change that was required since the F#/Giraffe backend has been in place was the one to support request recurrence. Since we did not end up with a scaffolded EF Core initial migration/model, we simply wrote a SQL script to accomplish these changes ([mpj:sql directory][sql]).<a href="#note-1"><sup>1</sup></a>
 
-## Database Access
+## The EF Core Model
 
 EF Core uses the familiar `DbContext` class from prior versions of Entity Framework. myPrayerJournal does take advantage of a feature that just arrived in EF Core 2.1, though - the `DbQuery` type. `DbSet`s are collections of entities that generally map to an underlying database table. They can be mapped to views, but unless it's an updateable view, updating those entities results in a runtime error; plus, since they can't be updated, there's no need for the change tracking mechanism to care about the entities returned. `DbQuery` addresses both these concerns, providing lightweight read-only access to data from views.
 
-The `DbContext` class is defined in Data.fs ([mpj:Data.fs][Data.fs]), starting in line 189.
+The `DbContext` class is defined in Data.fs ([mpj:Data.fs][Data.fs]), starting in line 189. It's relatively straightforward, though if you have only ever seen a C# model, it's a bit different. The combination of `val mutable x : [type]` and the `[<DefaultValue>]` attribute are the F# equivalent of C#'s `[type] x;` declaration, which creates a variable and initializes reference types to `null`. The EF Core runtime provides these instances to their setters (lines 203, 206, 209, and 212), and the application code uses them via the getters (a line earlier, each).
+
+The `OnModelCreating` overridden method (line 214) is called when the runtime first creates its instance of the data model. Within this method, we call the `.configureEF` function of each of our database types. The name of this function isn't prescribed, and we could define the entire model without even referencing the data types of our entities; however, this technique gives us a "configure where it's defined" paradigm with each entity type. While the EF "Code First" model creates tables that don't need a lot of configuring; sine we're writing a `DbContext` to target an existing database, we must provide more information about the layout of the database tables.
+
+Let's start out by taking a look at `History.configureEF` (line 50). Line 53 says that we're going to the table `history`. This seems to be a no-brainer, but EF Core would (by convention) be expecting a `History` table; since PostgreSQL uses a different syntax for case-sensitive names, these queries would look like `SELECT ... FROM "History" ...`, resulting in a nice "relation does not exist" error. Line 54 defines our compound key (`requestId` and `asOf`). Lines 55-57 define certain properties of the entity as required; if we try to store an entity where these fields are not set, the runtime will raise an exception before even trying to take it to the database. _(F#'s non-nullability makes this a non-issue, but it still needs to be defined to match the database.)_ Line 58 may seem to do nothing, but what it does is make the `text` property immediately visible to the model builder; then, we can define an `OptionConverter<string>`<a href="#note-2"><sup>2</sup></a> for it, which will translate between `null` and `string option` (`None` = `null`, `Some [x]` = `[x]`). _(Lines 60-61 are left over from when I was trying to figure out why line 62 was raising an exception, leading to the addition of line 58; they could safely be remove, and will be for a post-1.0 release.)_
+
+`History` is the most complex configuration, but let's take a peek at `Request.configureEF` (line 126) to see one more interesting technique. Lines 107-110 define the `history` and `notes` collections on the `Request` type; lines 138-145 define the one-to-many relationship (without a foreign key entity in the child types). Note the casts to `IEnumerable<x>` (lines 138 and 142) and `obj` (lines 140 and 144); while F# is good about inferring types in a lot of cases, these functions are two places it is not. We can use the `:>` operator for the cast, because these types are part of the inheritance chain. _(The `:?>` operator is used for potentially unsafe cases.)_
+
+## Reading and Writing Data
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+wrap
 
 ---
 
 <a name="note-1"><sup>1</sup></a> _Writing this post has shown me that I need to either create a SQL creation script for the repo, or create an EF Core initial migration/model, so the database ever has to be recreated from scratch. It's good to write about things after you do them!_
 
+<a name="note-2"><sup>2</sup></a> _This is also a package I wrote; it's [available on NuGet][oc-pkg], and I also wrote [a post about what it does][oc-post]._
+
 
 [intro]: /2018/a-tour-of-myprayerjournal/introduction.html "A Tour of myPrayerJournal: Introduction | The Bit Badger Blog"
 [RethinkDB]: https://rethinkdb.com
@@ -50,3 +64,6 @@ The `DbContext` class is defined in Data.fs ([mpj:Data.fs][Data.fs]), starting i
 [data.go]: https://github.com/bit-badger/myPrayerJournal/blob/d0ea7cf3c631512ea6b3afba61a25c83aaded6c8/src/api/data/data.go#L307 "api/data/data.go (Line 307) | myPrayerJournal | GitHub"
 [sql]: https://github.com/bit-badger/myPrayerJournal/tree/1.0.0/src/sql "sql | myPrayerJournal | GitHub"
 [Data.fs]: https://github.com/bit-badger/myPrayerJournal/blob/1.0.0/src/api/MyPrayerJournal.Api/Data.fs "api/Data.fs | myPrayerJournal | GitHub"
+
+[oc-pkg]: https://www.nuget.org/packages/FSharp.EFCore.OptionConverter/ "FSharp.OptionConverter | NuGet"
+[oc-post]: https://blog.bitbadger.solutions/2018/f-sharp-options-with-ef-core.html "F# Options with EF Core | The Bit Badger Blog"