SignalChat

SignalChat is a simple browser-based chat application using ASP.NET Core and SignalR.

SignalChat uses an n-tier architecture with services and repositories for simplicity. Instead of a full-blown message broker, it uses an in-memory queue and a background service to implement a decoupled bot that processes stock commands.

Features

• Register users, log in, and send messages in a chatroom.
• Send /stock=stock_code as command.
• Use stooq.com API to find the close price of a stock.
• Display the latest 50 messages when joining a chatroom.
• Include unit tests for validators, controllers, and SignalR hubs

Third-party tools used

• password-hashing for salting passwords
• FluentValidation for request validation
• OrmLite, a simpler alternative to full-featured ORMs like EntityFramework Core or NHibernate
• RestSharp to download CSV files from stooq.com API
• CsvHelper to read and parse CSV files
• Foundatio for in-memory queues and background jobs
• SignalR_UnitTestingSupport for unit testing SignalR hubs

Installation

To install SignalChat, you need a .NET environment and a running SQL Server. SignalChat was developed and tested using .NET 8.0 and SQL Server 2019.

When running in "Development" mode, SignalChat creates the required database and applies migrations if needed.

Using Docker

1. Clone this repository
2. On the root folder, run docker-compose up -d
3. Go to http://localhost:5000/
4. Enjoy!

Manually

1. Clone this repository
2. Have a SQL Server instance up and running. Make sure to have credentials with permissions to create tables.
3. Inside your SQL Server instance, create a database called: SignalChat
4. Update the connection string in the appsettings.json file in the SignalChat project to match your SQL Server instance.
5. Set the SignalChat project as the "Startup Project" and run it.
6. Enjoy!

As an alternative, you can choose Docker to only run a SQL Server instance. Here's how to start a local SQL Server instance using Docker:

$ docker run -d -p 1433:1433 -e "ACCEPT_EULA=Y" -e "SA_PASSWORD=<YourStrong@Passw0rd>" \
	--name sqlserver -h sqlserver \
	-d mcr.microsoft.com/mssql/server:2019-latest

Usage

SignalChat has three endpoints:

• POST api/account/register
• POST api/account/login
• GET api/message

and one SignalR hub:

• /chatHub

For educational purposes only. Well, it was more for interview purposes. But you get the idea. Handle with care.