How to best utilize DBContext with a Web API application

Question

I have a Web API that uses an Entity Framework DBContext to perform CRUD operations. My question is the following:

Initially, I used a static instance of my DBContext. However, with this format, any changes to the database tables do not display when I query the dataset again; the data is stale.

As a temporary fix, at the beginning of all my public class functions, I am creating a new DBContext object and calling that object to get data from the database. This is not the best idea for many reasons. But the data is no longer stale when I use this technique.

How do I utilize a DBContext appropriately so that multiple users will always see the current database data from a request? Should I put the DBContext as a field in my class and instantiate it in the constructor for the class? In that case, should each class have its own DBContext object?

Is there a best practice for using a DBContext appropriately? I am concerned about stale data and inaccurate results being pushed to my users.

Answer 1

It should also be noted that Entity Framework caches data. If you make changes to cached data directly in the database, Entity Framework will not see those changes until you create a new DbContext, or tell the underlying ObjectContext to Refresh.

Answer 2

DbContext is not thread-safe, so making it static is not a good thing for server code. The overhead of creating a DbContext is low so I do not see why we have to avoid making it instance variable.