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Lesson 2 Lab — CategoriesController

Build a CategoriesController following the same pattern as the StaffController from the guide. Refer to the guide and the StaffController you already built as your model.

The Category entity

Add Models/Category.cs:

namespace TableServe.Api.Models;

public class Category
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; } = string.Empty;
    public int SortOrder { get; set; }
}

Steps

  1. Add Category.cs to Models/
  2. Add DbSet<Category> Categories to TableServeDbContext
  3. Run Add-Migration AddCategory then Update-Database
  4. Verify the Categories table exists in SQL Server Object Explorer
  5. Run this in SSMS to seed the Categories:
SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[Categories] ON

INSERT INTO [dbo].[Categories] ([Id], [Name], [SortOrder]) VALUES (1, 'Appetizers', 1)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[Categories] ([Id], [Name], [SortOrder]) VALUES (2, 'Entrees', 2)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[Categories] ([Id], [Name], [SortOrder]) VALUES (3, 'Sides', 3)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[Categories] ([Id], [Name], [SortOrder]) VALUES (4, 'Desserts', 4)
INSERT INTO [dbo].[Categories] ([Id], [Name], [SortOrder]) VALUES (5, 'Drinks', 5)

SET IDENTITY_INSERT [dbo].[Categories] OFF
  1. Create Controllers/CategoriesController.cs with GetAll and GetById
  2. Run the project and verify your endpoints using the Categories folder in the Insomnia collection

Verify in Insomnia

Insomnia setup (importing the collection, setting baseUrl) is covered in detail in this lesson's guide — section 12. Once that's done (no need to log in first — the endpoints are open):

  1. Expand the Categories folder
  2. Run Get All Categories → expect 200 OK with all 5 categories
  3. Run Get Category by Id → expect 200 OK with Appetizers
  4. Run Get Category by Id (Not Found) → expect 404 Not Found
  5. Check the Tests tab on each response — all tests should be green

You just repeated the same pattern on a different entity — this is exactly what you'll do five times when building the PRS backend in the capstone.

Stretch challenges

Optional — for when you finish early. Not needed for the capstone. [Reinforce] builds on what you just did; [Reach] goes past the guide and needs some research.

  • Sort the list — [Reinforce] — return categories from GetAll ordered by SortOrder, then Name, using OrderBy / ThenBy.
  • Filter by name — [Reinforce] — accept an optional ?name= query string on GetAll and return only categories whose Name contains it. (This is the same shape as the ?status= filter you'll write on Orders in Lesson 4.)
  • 404 on a bad id — [Reinforce] — make GetById return NotFound() when the id doesn't exist, ahead of Lesson 3 formally covering status codes in controllers.

Finished these and want more? See stretch-api-challenges.md for bigger challenges that span the whole API pass.