BaseEntity

Namespace: RA.Utilities.Data.Entities

The BaseEntity class serves as the foundation for all entities within your data model. It encapsulates common properties that nearly every entity will require, reducing redundancy and ensuring consistency across your application.

🧠 Here's a breakdown of its purpose:

1. Unique Identification:

It provides a standard Id property, usually a Guid, which serves as the primary key for uniquely identifying each entity instance.

2. Timestamping:

It includes CreatedAt and LastModifiedAt properties. These properties automatically record when an entity was initially created and when it was last updated, providing valuable historical context for data changes.

Properties

Property	Type	Description
Id	Guid	The unique identifier for the entity.
CreatedAt	DateTime	The date and time when the entity was created.
ModifiedAt	DateTime?	The date and time when the entity was last modified.

By inheriting from BaseEntity, you automatically equip your entities with these essential properties, promoting code reuse and simplifying data management.

Example: Category Entity

By inheriting from BaseEntity, the Category class automatically gets the essential properties for a unique identifier and timestamps, which saves you from writing repetitive code.

using RA.Utilities.Data.Entities;

namespace YourApp.Domain.Entities;

/// <summary>
/// Represents a product category in the system.
/// It inherits from BaseEntity to get standard properties like Id and timestamps.
/// </summary>
public class Category : BaseEntity
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets the name of the category.
    /// </summary>
    public string Name { get; set; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets the description for the category.
    /// </summary>
    public string? Description { get; set; }
}

Resulting Properties

When you create the Category entity as shown above, it will have the following properties. The ones from BaseEntity are inherited automatically.

Property	Type	Description	Source
Id	Guid	The unique identifier for the category.	Inherited from BaseEntity
CreatedAt	DateTime	The timestamp of when the category was created.	Inherited from BaseEntity
LastModifiedAt	DateTime?	The timestamp of when the category was last modified.	Inherited from BaseEntity
Name	string	The name of the category.	Defined in Category
Description	string?	The description of the category.	Defined in Category

This approach allows you to build your data models on a consistent and solid foundation, focusing only on the properties that are unique to each entity.