Developing an application with Vue JS, .NET Core Web API, and Microsoft SQL Server

In this tutorial, we will be building a full-stack web application using Vue JS for the front-end, .NET Core Web API for the back-end, and Microsoft SQL Server for the database. This tutorial will cover how to set up the project structure, create the API endpoints, connect the front-end to the back-end, and interact with the database.

Prerequisites:

1. Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
2. Familiarity with Vue JS and .NET Core.
3. Microsoft SQL Server installed on your machine.

Step 1: Set up the project structure
First, create a new folder for your project and open it in your preferred code editor. Inside the project folder, create two separate folders for the front-end and back-end code. You can name them "frontend" and "backend", respectively.

Step 2: Set up the back-end

1. Open a terminal and navigate to the "backend" folder in your project directory.
2. Run the following command to create a new .NET Core Web API project:

   dotnet new webapi

3. Open the project in your code editor and navigate to the Startup.cs file. Here, you can configure services and middleware for your API.
4. Add a connection string to your SQL Server database in the appsettings.json file:

   "ConnectionStrings": {
   "DefaultConnection": "Server=localhost;Database=YourDatabaseName;Trusted_Connection=True;"
   }

5. Install the Entity Framework Core and SQL Server packages using the following NuGet package manager command:

   dotnet add package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer
   dotnet add package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools

6. Create a model class for your data entities, such as User.cs. Define your properties and relationships.

7. Create a DbContext class that inherits from DbContext and configure your entities:

   public class AppDbContext : DbContext
   {
   public DbSet<User> Users { get; set; }
   
   protected override void OnConfiguring(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder)
   {
   optionsBuilder.UseSqlServer(Configuration.GetConnectionString("DefaultConnection"));
   }
   }

8. Create a controller class to handle API endpoints, such as UsersController.cs. Define your CRUD operations using Entity Framework Core.

Step 3: Set up the front-end

1. Open a terminal and navigate to the "frontend" folder in your project directory.
2. Run the following command to create a new Vue JS project:

   vue create frontend

3. You will be prompted to choose a preset. Select "Manually select features" and choose the features you want to include in your project.
4. Install the Axios package to make HTTP requests to your API:

   npm install axios

5. Create components for your front-end application, such as a user list component to display users fetched from the API.

Step 4: Connect the front-end to the back-end

1. In your Vue JS project, create a service file to make HTTP requests to your API. Define functions to fetch, create, update, and delete users.
2. Import Axios in your service file:

   import axios from 'axios';

3. Make API calls using Axios methods, such as axios.get(), axios.post(), axios.put(), and axios.delete().
4. Use these API service functions in your Vue components to interact with the back-end.

Step 5: Interact with the database

1. Run your .NET Core Web API project and make sure it is running on a specific port.
2. Create a new database in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and run the Entity Framework Core migrations to create the database schema:

   dotnet ef migrations add InitialCreate
   dotnet ef database update

3. Seed your database with some initial data using Entity Framework Core, such as in the Startup.cs file:

   if (!dbContext.Users.Any())
   {
   dbContext.Users.Add(new User { Name = "John Doe", Email = "john.doe@example.com" });
   dbContext.SaveChanges();
   }

Congratulations! You have successfully built a full-stack web application using Vue JS, .NET Core Web API, and Microsoft SQL Server. You can now expand your application by adding more features, implementing authentication, and deploying it to a web server. Happy coding!