Inandu.Grid.Extensions.AspNetCore 0.4.0

Inandu.Grid.Extensions

One extension method turns an inandu-grid serverSide request into a single paged SQL query. No hand-rolled dynamic sort/filter builder, no OData, no GraphQL layer to stand up — ToInanduGrid() / ToInanduGridAsync() read the grid's own wire contract (multi-column sort, free-text search, per-column filters, grouping, aggregates, keyset paging) and do the query work for you, over plain IEnumerable<T> or EF Core IQueryable<T>.

Try it in 30 seconds

dotnet add package Inandu.Grid.Extensions

using Inandu.Grid.Extensions;

app.MapGet("/api/products", (HttpRequest request) =>
    _products.ToInanduGrid(request.QueryString.Value)); // { data, total, page, pageSize, pageCount }

That single call reads page/sort/q/column filters straight off the query string and returns just the page the grid asked for — see Quick start below for the EF Core (async) and ASP.NET Core binding variants.

Who is this for?

• .NET / ASP.NET Core APIs backing an <inandu-grid serverSide> (or any client speaking the same query-param contract) that don't want to hand-write dynamic LINQ sort/filter/paging for every entity.
• EF Core apps that want the database to do the work — sort/filter/paging translate to SQL, so only one page is ever fetched, not the whole table scanned in memory.
• Teams that want the query surface locked down — per-column allow-lists, a query cost guard, and a ThrowOnUnknownField mode for public endpoints.

When not to use it: if you're not using inandu-grid's serverSide wire contract (or something compatible with it) at all — this isn't a general-purpose OData or GraphQL server, see Not included below.

Not included

Deliberately scoped to what the grid's wire contract needs, not a general-purpose query API:

• No OData or GraphQL. The query-string contract is inandu-grid's own (documented in docs/request-contract.md), not a spec-compliant OData/GraphQL server.
• No built-in caching layer. Every request runs a real query; add your own caching (response caching, a distributed cache) in front of it if you need one.
• .NET only. There's no equivalent for other backend stacks — the contract itself is plain query-string params, so a Node/Python/Go backend can implement it by hand against the same request contract docs, just not with this library.

Packages

Multi-targets net8.0 and net10.0.

Install

dotnet add package Inandu.Grid.Extensions

Quick start

ASP.NET Core (in-memory or any IEnumerable<T>)

using Inandu.Grid.Extensions;

app.MapGet("/api/products", (HttpRequest request) =>
{
    InanduGridResult<Product> page = _products.ToInanduGrid(request.QueryString.Value, options =>
    {
        options.DefaultPageSize   = 25;
        options.MaxPageSize       = 200;
        options.SearchableFields  = new() { nameof(Product.Name), nameof(Product.Sku) };
    });

    return Results.Ok(page); // { data: [...], total: 1234, page: 1, pageSize: 25, pageCount: 50 }
});

MVC controller

[HttpGet]
public ActionResult<InanduGridResult<Product>> Get()
    => _products.ToInanduGrid(Request.QueryString.Value);

EF Core (async)

dotnet add package Inandu.Grid.Extensions.EntityFrameworkCore

using Inandu.Grid.Extensions.EntityFrameworkCore;

app.MapGet("/api/orders", (HttpRequest req, AppDb db, CancellationToken ct) =>
    db.Orders.AsNoTracking().ToInanduGridAsync(req.QueryString.Value, ct: ct));

ToInanduGridAsync runs CountAsync + ToListAsync under the hood. There are projected (ToInanduGridAsync(selector, …)) and grouped (ToInanduGridGroupedAsync) overloads too. Without the package, ApplyInanduGridQuery gives you the composed FilteredQuery / PagedQuery to await yourself.

[FromInanduGrid] — ASP.NET Core binding

dotnet add package Inandu.Grid.Extensions.AspNetCore

using Inandu.Grid.Extensions.AspNetCore;

// MVC controller
[HttpGet]
public ActionResult<InanduGridResult<Product>> Get([FromInanduGrid] InanduGridRequest request)
    => _products.ToInanduGrid(InanduGridOptions.For(request));

// …or bind every InanduGridRequest parameter without the attribute
builder.Services.AddControllers().AddInanduGridModelBinding();

// minimal API
app.MapGet("/api/products", async (HttpRequest req) =>
    _products.ToInanduGrid(InanduGridOptions.For(await InanduGridBinding.FromHttpRequestAsync(req))));

InanduGridBinding reads the query string, or a JSON body for a POST.

Bind the request yourself (JSON body, gRPC, tests…)

InanduGridRequest is a plain DTO. @inandu-solutions/grid-pro POSTs a body shaped { sort: [{ field, direction }], page, pageSize, query, columnFilters } — deserialize it straight into InanduGridRequest (a bundled System.Text.Json converter accepts "asc" / "desc" and the "-field" token form):

app.MapPost("/api/products/query", (InanduGridRequest request) =>
    _products.ToInanduGrid(request, o => o.MaxPageSize = 200));

Return a DTO, not the entity

ToInanduGrid<TSource, TResult>(selector, …) sorts and filters on the entity, then projects the page — over EF Core the projection is part of the SQL, so only the DTO's columns are read:

db.Orders.ToInanduGrid(
    o => new OrderDto(o.Id, o.Reference, o.Customer.Name, o.Total),
    Request.QueryString.Value,
    cfg => cfg.FieldMap = new() { ["customer"] = "Customer.Name" }); // filter/sort by Customer.Name

Advanced filter (nested AND / OR)

@inandu-solutions/grid-pro's query builder can serialise its tree with advancedQueryToRestParams into a filter=<json> param. This library parses it (InanduGridRequest.Filter / .AdvancedFilter) and applies it as an extra AND — operators include between, notContains, isTrue/isFalse, isEmpty/isNotEmpty. See docs/advanced-filter.md.

Server-side grouping

ToInanduGridGrouped() — groupBy=region,category returns the level's { key, count } groups; groupKeys=EMEA drills in (the next level, or the group's rows past the last groupBy). Filters, free-text and the advanced filter all still apply. See docs/grouping.md.

var result = db.Sales.ToInanduGridGrouped(InanduGridOptions.FromQueryString(qs));
return result.IsLeaf ? Results.Ok(result.Rows) : Results.Ok(result.Groups);

Aggregate totals

aggregate=sum:amount,avg:rating,count:*,min:createdOn,max:price → computed over the filtered set (not the page) into InanduGridResult<T>.Aggregations ({ "sum:amount": 91234.5, … }) — for the grid's totals row.

Keyset (cursor) pagination

For deep pages, after=<cursor> seeks past the last row instead of Skip-ing over everything:

var page = db.Orders.ToInanduGrid("?pageSize=50&sort=-createdOn,id", o => o.EnableKeyset = true);
// page.NextCursor -> next request adds &after=<NextCursor>;  o.IncludeTotal = false skips the COUNT

The sort columns are the cursor — include a unique tie-breaker (,id). A missing / stale cursor falls back to offset paging. See docs/keyset-pagination.md.

Per-column configuration

o.Column("customer").Path("Customer.Name").Searchable();
o.Column("price").Filterable(FilterOperator.GreaterThanOrEqual, FilterOperator.LessThanOrEqual);
o.Column("internalNote").NotFilterable().Sortable(false);

A disallowed operator / sort / filter is dropped — or, with o.ThrowOnUnknownField = true, throws InanduGridRequestException (its Errors map is ValidationProblemDetails-shaped). See docs/column-config.md.

Query cost guard

o.Limits caps how large a request can be (conditions, sort columns, advanced-filter depth / nodes, in-list length, group levels, aggregations). o.OnLimitExceeded is Trim (default) or Reject (throw). Defaults are generous; tighten for a public endpoint.

Minimal-API one-liners (Inandu.Grid.Extensions.AspNetCore)

app.MapInanduGrid("/api/products", products);
app.MapInanduGridGrouped("/api/products/groups", ctx => ctx.RequestServices.GetRequiredService<AppDb>().Products);
app.MapInanduGridDistinct("/api/products/distinct/{field}", products);

Using Swagger/OpenAPI? Minimal-API endpoints that read the query string by hand (which is what all of the above do) are invisible to Swashbuckle by default — page, sort, q and friends show up as undocumented. See docs/openapi-swagger.md for the ~50-line filter the playground uses to document them properly.

The Angular side

Wire the grid's serverSide outputs to a request and bind the response:

<inandu-grid serverSide
  [data]="rows()" [totalItems]="total()" [loading]="loading()"
  (sortChange)="onSort($event)" (pageChange)="onPage($event)" (filterChange)="onFilter($event)">
  …
</inandu-grid>

Either hand-build the query string, or let @inandu-solutions/grid-pro's createInanduGridDataSource do it — the params it emits are exactly what this package parses. See the playground for a full working example, and the live grid demo for the front end this serves.

Request contract

See docs/request-contract.md for the full parameter list. In short:

Configuration

See docs/options.md. Highlights: DefaultPageSize, MaxPageSize, SearchableFields, StringComparison, FieldMap (grid field → CLR path), ThrowOnUnknownField, Culture.

Build, test & benchmark

dotnet build
dotnet test                                                   # 165 tests, net8.0 + net10.0
dotnet run -c Release --project benchmarks/Inandu.Grid.Extensions.Benchmarks

The libraries multi-target net8.0;net10.0 when built with the .NET 10 SDK; with only the .NET 8 SDK they build net8.0 alone (see the condition in each .csproj). Produce release packages with the .NET 10 SDK so the .nupkgs ship both. See docs/publishing.md.

Benchmarks

BenchmarkDotNet micro-benchmarks over 100,000 in-memory rows, one benchmark per query shape (plain page, filter, sort, filter+sort+page, free-text, advanced filter, grouping, projection). Reference numbers (i5-7200U, .NET 8, short job): filter+sort+page ≈ 10 ms, advanced-filter ≈ 4 ms, top-level grouping ≈ 12 ms — treat these as ballpark, not a guarantee, and run it on your own hardware for a number that matters to your deployment. Full methodology and the complete benchmark list: benchmarks/README.md. A workflow_dispatch-triggered Benchmarks workflow runs the same suite on GitHub's runners and uploads the results as a build artifact, for a reproducible (if not hardware-comparable) run anyone can trigger.

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome on GitHub. Add tests for behaviour changes and keep the core library dependency-free — see CONTRIBUTING.md. Questions and usage help: see .github/SUPPORT.md — prefer Discussions over an issue. For security reports, see .github/SECURITY.md — don't open a public issue.

License

MIT © Inandu SAS — see LICENSE.