Error "object reference not set to an instance of an object"
This is one of the most common errors when developing an application. In this article, I will be presenting five of the most common mistakes that result with this error and will explain how to avoid them.

Why does this error happen?
This error's description speaks for itself but when you do not have much experience in development, it is very difficult to understand. So, this error description says that an object that is being called to get or set its value has no reference. This means that you are trying to access an object that was not instantiated.

Why should I know this?
This is important in order to avoid runtime errors that could possibly expose your sensitive data and this could lead to a vulnerability breach. Vulnerability breaches are usually used by hackers for a cyber attack to steal your data or to take your server offline.

How to avoid exposing code and entities?
You must always wrap code that could possibly throw an exception inside try-catch blocks. There are others security approaches that you can use to protect your data that can be found here.

Common mistakes
Objects used in this sample.

Controller
public class HomeController : Controller 
   { 
       SampleObj sampleObj; 
       SampleChildObj sampleChild; 
       List<string> lstSample; 
       public IActionResult Index() 
       { 
           return View(); 
       } 
 
       public IActionResult About() 
       { 
           ViewData["Message"] = "Your application description page."; 
 
           return View(); 
       } 
 
       public IActionResult Contact() 
       { 
           ViewData["Message"] = "Your contact page."; 
 
           return View(); 
       } 
 
       public IActionResult Error() 
       { 
           return View(); 
       } 
       public IActionResult NewObject() 
       { 
           sampleChild.Item2 = "error"; 
           return View(); 
       } 
 
       public IActionResult ConditionStatement() 
       { 
           if (true == false) 
           { 
               sampleChild = new SampleChildObj(); 
               sampleChild.Item2 = ""; 
           } 
           else 
               sampleChild.Item2 = "error"; 
 
           return View(); 
       } 
       public IActionResult ObjectInsideObject() 
       { 
           sampleObj = new SampleObj(); 
           sampleObj.ChildObj.Item2 = "error"; 
           return View(); 
       } 
       public IActionResult AddInNullList() 
       { 
           lstSample.Add("error"); 
           return View(); 
       } 
   } 

Classes
public class SampleObj 
{ 
 
    public string Item1 { get; set; } 
    public SampleChildObj ChildObj { get; set; } 
} 
public class SampleChildObj  
{ 
    public string Item2 { get; set; } 
} 

New object not instantiated
Practical example:
Here, we have a sample situation of when we have this error.

public IActionResult NewObject() 
{ 
    sampleChild.Item2 = "error"; 
    return View(); 
} 

This happens when you create a new object but do not instantiate it before getting/setting a value.
Condition statement(if, switch)

Practical example:
Here, we have a sample situation of when we have this error,

public IActionResult ConditionStatement() 
{ 
    if (true == false) 
    { 
        sampleChild = new SampleChildObj(); 
        sampleChild.Item2 = ""; 
    } 
    else 
        sampleChild.Item2 = "error"; 
 
    return View(); 
} 

Why does this happen?
This is a very common mistake. It happens when you create an object that is going to be instantiated inside a conditional statement but forgets to instantiate it in one of the conditions and try to read/write on it.

Object Inside Object

Practical Example
Here, we have a sample situation of when we have this error:

public IActionResult ObjectInsideObject() 
{ 
    sampleObj = new SampleObj(); 
    sampleObj.ChildObj.Item2 = "error"; 
    return View(); 
} 

Why this happens?
It happens when you have an object with many child objects. So, you instantiate the main object but forget to instantiate its child before trying to get/set its value.

Add item in a null list

Practical Example
Here we have a sample situation of when we have this error,
public IActionResult AddInNullList() 
{ 
    lstSample.Add("error"); 
    return View(); 
}

Why does this happen?
When you are trying to read/write data in a list that was not instantiated before.

Important
In order to avoid exposing your data, you must always handle exceptions. Read more about how to do that here.
The items listed above are some of the most common ways to throw this type of error but there are many other situations in which we may face it. Always remember to check if your objects are instantiated before reading or writing data into them.

Best practices
Tips about commenting your code, making it more readable in order to help others developers to understand it.
Object naming practices, creating a pattern to name variables, services, methods.
Handling errors to not show sensitive data to your users.
Security tricks to protect your data.
Reading/writing data without breaking your architecture.

*I am planning to write more about common mistakes and to share tips to improve code quality. If you have any specific topic that you would like to read here, please write it below in the comments section.

Performance is very important; it is a major factor for the success of any web application. ASP.NET Core 3.0 includes several enhancements that scale back memory usage and improve turnout. In this blog post, I provide 10 tips to help you improve the performance of ASP.NET Core 3.0 applications by doing the following:

Avoid synchronous and use asynchronous

Try to avoid synchronous calling when developing ASP.NET Core 3.0 applications. Synchronous calling blocks the next execution until the current execution is completed. While fetching data from an API or performing operations like I/O operations or independent calling, execute the call in an asynchronous manner.

Avoid using Task.Wait and Task.Result, and try to use await. The following code shows how to do this.

public class WebHost
{
    public virtual async Task StartAsync(CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
    { 

        // Fire IHostedService.Start
        await _hostedServiceExecutor.StartAsync(cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false); 

        // More setup
        await Server.StartAsync(hostingApp, cancellationToken).ConfigureAwait(false); 

        // Fire IApplicationLifetime.Started
        _applicationLifetime?.NotifyStarted(); 

        // Remaining setup
    }
}

Entity Framework 3.0 Core also provides a set of async extension methods, similar to LINQ methods, that execute a query and return results.

Asynchronous querying

Asynchronous queries avoid blocking a thread while the query is executed in the database. Async queries are important for quick, responsive client applications.

Examples:

• ToListAsync()
• ToArrayAsync()
• SingleAsync()

public async Task<List> GetBlogsAsync()
{
    using (var context = new BloggingContext())
    {
        return await context.Blogs.ToListAsync();
    }
}

Asynchronous saving

Asynchronous saving avoids a thread block while changes are written to the database. It provides DbContext.SaveChangesAsync() as an asynchronous alternative to DbContext.SaveChanges().

public static async Task AddBlogAsync(string url)
{
    using (var context = new BloggingContext())
    {
        var blogContent = new BlogContent { Url = url };
        context.Blogs.Add(blogContent);
        await context.SaveChangesAsync();
    }
}

Optimize data access

Improve the performance of an application by optimizing its data access logic. Most applications are totally dependent on a database. They have to fetch data from the database, process the data, and then display it. If it is time-consuming, then the application will take much more time to load.

Recommendations:

• Call all data access APIs asynchronously.
• Don’t try to get data that is not required in advance.
• Try to use no-tracking queries in Entity Framework Core when accessing data for read-only purposes.
• Use filter and aggregate LINQ queries (with .Where, .Select, or .Sum statements), so filtering can be performed by the database.

You can find approaches that may improve performance of your high-scale apps in the new features of EF Core 3.0.

Use response caching middleware

Middleware controls when responses are cacheable. It stores responses and serves them from the cache. It is available in the Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCaching package, which was implicitly added to ASP.NET Core.

In Startup.ConfigureServices, add the Response Caching Middleware to the service collection.

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddResponseCaching();
    services.AddRazorPages();
}

Use JSON serialization

ASP.NET Core 3.0 uses System.Text.Json for JSON serialization by default. Now, you can read and write JSON asynchronously. This improves performance better than Newtonsoft.Json. The System.Text.Json namespace provides the following features for processing JSON:

• High performance.
• Low allocation.

• Standards-compliant capabilities.

• Serializing objects to JSON text and deserializing JSON text to objects.

Reduce HTTP requests

Reducing the number of HTTP requests is one of the major optimizations. Cache the webpages and avoid client-side redirects to reduce the number of connections made to the web server.

Use the following techniques to reduce the HTTP requests:

• Use minification.
• Use bundling.
• Use sprite images.

By reducing HTTP requests, these techniques help pages load faster.

Use exceptions only when necessary

Exceptions should be rare. Throwing and catching exceptions will consume more time relative to other code flow patterns.

• Don’t throw and catch exceptions in normal program flow.

• Use exceptions only when they are needed.

Use response compression

Response compression, which compresses the size of a file, is another factor in improving performance. In ASP.NET Core, response compression is available as a middleware component.

Usually, responses are not natively compressed. This typically includes CSS, JavaScript, HTML, XML, and JSON.

• Don’t compress natively compressed assets, such as PNG files.
• Don’t compress files with a size of 150-1,000 bytes.
• Don’t compress small files; it may produce a compressed file larger than the uncompressed file.

Package: Microsoft.AspNetCore.ResponseCompression is implicitly included in ASP.NET Core apps.

The following sample code shows how to enable Response Compression Middleware for the default MIME types and compression providers.

public class Startup
{
    public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
    {
        services.AddResponseCompression();
    }
    public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IHostingEnvironment env)
    {
        app.UseResponseCompression();
    }
}

These are the providers:

• Brotli Compression Provider
• Gzip Compression Provider
• Custom providers

public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
{
    services.AddResponseCompression(options =>
    {
        options.Providers.Add<BrotliCompressionProvider>();
        options.Providers.Add<GzipCompressionProvider>();
        options.Providers.Add<CustomCompressionProvider>();
        options.MimeTypes =
            ResponseCompressionDefaults.MimeTypes.Concat(
                new[] { "image/svg+xml" });
    });
}

HttpContext accessibility improvements

HttpContext accessibility is only valid as long as there is an active HTTP request in ASP.NET Core. Here are some suggestions for accessing HttpContext from Microsoft’s documentation:

• Don’t store IHttpContextAccessor.HttpContext in a field.
• Don’t access HttpContext from multiple threads.

• Don’t use the HttpContext after the request is complete

• Don’t capture the HttpContext in background threads

Client-side improvements

Client-side optimization is one important aspect of improving performance. When creating a website using ASP.Net Core, consider the following tips:

Bundling

Bundling combines multiple files into a single file, reducing the number of server requests. You can use multiple individual bundles in a webpage.

Minification

Minification removes unnecessary characters from code without changing any functionality, also reducing file size. After applying minification, variable names are shortened to one character and comments and unnecessary whitespace are removed.

Loading JavaScript at last

Load JavaScript files at the end. If you do that, static content will show faster, so users won’t have to wait to see the content.

Use a content delivery network

Use a content delivery network (CDN) to load static files such as images, JS, CSS, etc. This keeps your data close to your consumers, serving it from the nearest local server.

Conclusion

Now you know 10 tips to help improve the performance of ASP.NET Core 3.0 applications. I hope you can implement most of them in your development.

This is only brief tutorial about how to use AutoMapper in Asp Net Core 3.0 application. Automapper is a very popular Object-to-Object mapping library that can be used to map objects.

How to use automapper in Asp.Net Core 3.0 application

Let’s see how to use automapper in Asp Net Core 3.0 application using a very simple example.

1. First step you need to do is please make sure you install Asp.net Core 3.0 application à Create a new project button à then choose “ASP.NET Core Web Application” template à click “Next” button and then enter your Project name. Please see the image below for further information

2. Install AutoMapper in Asp.Net Core 3.0 Application 

Now, in this step, we will install AutoMapper in our project. So, go to visual studio and then go to “Tools” from the menu and then select “NuGet Package Manager” and then choose “Manager NuGet Packages for Solution”. Now, go to “Browse” tab and then install this below package as you do see below in the screenshot.

Install-Package AutoMapper.Extensions.Microsoft.DependencyInjection

3. Configure AutoMapper in Asp.net Core 3.0 Application

Go to project folder structure, and then go to Startup class and then add some changes as you do see below in the code file’s Line # 11 and Line # 26.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.HttpsPolicy;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Hosting;
using AutoMapper;
namespace AspNetCore3AutoMapper
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public Startup(IConfiguration configuration)
        {
            Configuration = configuration;
        }

        public IConfiguration Configuration { get; }
        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to add services to the container.
        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            services.AddControllersWithViews();
            services.AddAutoMapper(typeof(Startup));
        }
        // This method gets called by the runtime. Use this method to configure the HTTP request pipeline.
        public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, IWebHostEnvironment env)
        {
            if (env.IsDevelopment())
            {
                app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
            }
            else
            {
                app.UseExceptionHandler("/Home/Error");
                // The default HSTS value is 30 days. You may want to change this for production scenarios, see https://aka.ms/aspnetcore-hsts.
                app.UseHsts();
            }
            app.UseHttpsRedirection();
            app.UseStaticFiles();
            app.UseRouting();
            app.UseAuthorization();
            app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
            {
                endpoints.MapControllerRoute(
                    name: "default",
                    pattern: "{controller=Home}/{action=Index}/{id?}");
            });

        }
    }
}

4. Create a Model Class and Data Transfer Object Class

Now, in this step , we will create two classes. One is Model class and the other one is Dto(Data Transfer Object) class. So, go to Models’ folder and then right click on the folder name and then add a new class with the name of “Employee” and then write some properties as you do see below in the code.

public class Employee
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public string Department { get; set; }
    }

Now, again add a new class with the name of “EmployeeDto” as you do see below in the file.

public class EmployeeDto
    {
        public int Id { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public string Department { get; set; }
    }

5. Add relation of Employee class with EmployeeDto class

Now, in this step, we will see how to add relation between a domain class and a Dto class. So, again add a new class (E.g. AutoMapping.cs) and then write some code as you do see below in the code.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using AutoMapper;

namespace AspNetCoreAutoMapper.Models
{
    public class AutoMapping : Profile
    {
        public AutoMapping()
        {
            CreateMap<Employee, EmployeeDto>();
        }
    }
}

Let’s understand the above code.

Line # 9: In this line, we are inheriting AutoMapping class from Profile.

Line # 13: In this line, we are mapping our Employee and EmployeeDto Classes.

6. Map Employee class with EmployeeDto Controller

We will see how to map Employee class with EmployeeDto class within the Home Controller. So, go to HomeController and then go to Index method and then write some code as you do see below in the file.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Linq;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;
using AspNetCore3AutoMapper.Models;
using AutoMapper;

namespace AspNetCore3AutoMapper.Controllers
{
    public class HomeController : Controller
    {
        private readonly IMapper _mapper;
        public HomeController(IMapper mapper)
        {
            _mapper = mapper;
        }
        public IActionResult Index()
        {
            var empObj = new Employee();
            empObj.Id = 1;
            empObj.Name = "Scott";
            empObj.Department = "MM";
            var employeeDto = _mapper.Map<EmployeeDto>(empObj);
            return View(employeeDto);
        }
    }
}

Let’s understand the above code.

Line # 15 to 19: In this block of code, we are injecting IMapper interface. This will help us to use our configured mappings.

Line # 22 to 25: In this block of code, we are initializing Employee object.

Line # 26: In this line, we are using IMapper interface that we have injected into our constructor to call the Map method. And we are giving the type that we want to map and the object that we want to map from.

Line # 27: In this line, we are returning the EmployeeDto object to the view.

Now, go to Index view and access the returning values from the Index method as you do see below in the file.

@model EmployeeDto
@{
    ViewData["Title"] = "Home Page";
}
<div>
    <h1>ID: @Model.Id</h1>
    <h1>Name: @Model.Name</h1>
    <h1>Department: @Model.Department</h1>
</div>

Now, run your project by pressing f5 and then you will see the output

Or you can install this package by using this below command in Package Manager Console as you do see below in the screenshot.

With the introduction of ASP.NET Core 3.0 the default JSON serializer has been changed from Newtonsoft.Json to System.Text.Json. For projects and libraries switching to the new JSON serializer this change means more performance and the opportunity to rewrite our JsonConverters.

Serialization of concrete classes

Let's start with a simple one that can (de)serialize a concrete class Category. In our example we (de)serialize the property Name only.

public class Category
{
   public string Name { get; }

   public Category(string name)
   {
      Name = name;
   }
}

To implement a custom JSON converter we have to derive from the generic class JsonConverter<T> and to implement 2 methods: Read and Write.

public class CategoryJsonConverter : JsonConverter<Category>
{
   public override Category Read(ref Utf8JsonReader reader,
                                 Type typeToConvert,
                                 JsonSerializerOptions options)
   {
      var name = reader.GetString();

      return new Category(name);
   }

   public override void Write(Utf8JsonWriter writer,
                              Category value,
                              JsonSerializerOptions options)
   {
      writer.WriteStringValue(value.Name);
   }
}

The method Read is using the Utf8JsonReader to fetch a string, i.e. the name, and the method Write is writing a string using an instance of Utf8JsonWriter.

In both cases (i.e. during serialization and deserialization) the converter is not being called if the value is null so I skipped the null checks. The .NET team doesn't do null checks either, see JsonKeyValuePairConverter<TKey, TValue>.

Let's test the new JSON converter. For that we create an instance of JsonSerializerOptions and add our CategoryJsonConverter to the Converters collection. Next, we use the static class JsonSerializer to serialize and to deserialize an instance of Category.

Category category = new Category("my category");

var serializerOptions = new JsonSerializerOptions
{
    Converters = { new CategoryJsonConverter() }
};

// json = "my category"
var json = JsonSerializer.Serialize(category, serializerOptions);

// deserializedCategory.Name = "my category"
var deserializedCategory = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<Category>(json, serializerOptions);

Serialization of generic classes

The next example is slightly more complex. The property we are serializing is a generic type argument, i.e. we can't use methods like reader.GetString() or writer.WriteStringValue(name) because we don't know the type at compile time.

In this example I've changed the class Category to a generic type and renamed the property Name to Key:

public class Category<T>
{
   public T Key { get; }

   public Category(T key)
   {
      Key = key;
   }
}

For serialization of the generic property Key we need to fetch a JsonSerializer<T> using the instance of JsonSerializerOptions.

public class CategoryJsonConverter<T> : JsonConverter<Category<T>>
{
   public override Category<T> Read(ref Utf8JsonReader reader,
                                    Type typeToConvert,
                                    JsonSerializerOptions options)
   {
      var converter = GetKeyConverter(options);
      var key = converter.Read(ref reader, typeToConvert, options);

      return new Category<T>(key);
   }

   public override void Write(Utf8JsonWriter writer,
                              Category<T> value,
                              JsonSerializerOptions options)
   {
      var converter = GetKeyConverter(options);
      converter.Write(writer, value.Key, options);
   }

   private static JsonConverter<T> GetKeyConverter(JsonSerializerOptions options)
   {
      var converter = options.GetConverter(typeof(T)) as JsonConverter<T>;

      if (converter is null)
         throw new JsonException("...");

      return converter;
   }
}

The behavior of the generic JSON converter is the same as before especially if the Key is of type string.

Deciding the concrete JSON converter at runtime

Having several categories with different key types, say, string and int, we need to register them all with the JsonSerializerOptions.

var serializerOptions = new JsonSerializerOptions
                        {
                           Converters =
                           {
                              new CategoryJsonConverter<string>(),
                              new CategoryJsonConverter<int>()
                           }
                        };

If the number of required CategoryJsonConverters grows to big or the concrete types of the Key are not known at compile time then this approach is not an option. To make this decision at runtime we need to implement a JsonConverterFactory. The factory has 2 method: CanConvert(type) that returns true if the factory is responsible for the serialization of the provided type; and CreateConverter(type, options) that should return an instance of type JsonConverter.

public class CategoryJsonConverterFactory : JsonConverterFactory
{
   public override bool CanConvert(Type typeToConvert)
   {
      if (!typeToConvert.IsGenericType)
         return false;

      var type = typeToConvert;

      if (!type.IsGenericTypeDefinition)
         type = type.GetGenericTypeDefinition();

      return type == typeof(Category<>);
   }

   public override JsonConverter CreateConverter(Type typeToConvert,
                                                 JsonSerializerOptions options)
   {
      var keyType = typeToConvert.GenericTypeArguments[0];
      var converterType = typeof(CategoryJsonConverter<>).MakeGenericType(keyType);

      return (JsonConverter)Activator.CreateInstance(converterType);
   }
}

Now, we can remove all registrations of the CategoryJsonConverter<T> from the options and add the newly implemented factory.

Category<int> category = new Category<int>(42);

var serializerOptions = new JsonSerializerOptions
{
    Converters = { new CategoryJsonConverterFactory() }
};

// json = 42
var json = JsonSerializer.Serialize(category, serializerOptions);

// deserialized.Key = 42
var deserialized = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<Category<int>>(json, serializerOptions);

In the end the implementation of a custom converter for System.Text.Json is very similar to the one for Newtonsoft.Json. The biggest difference here is the non-existence of a non-generic JsonConverter but for that we've got the JsonConverterFactory.

Actually, there is a non-generic JsonConverter which is the base class of the JsonConverter<T> and the JsonConverterFactory but we cannot (and should not) use this class directly because its constructor is internal.