Data Source - Best way to organize methods/classes pertaining to the entire table?

Question

In my company we work with models based on the "Active Record" standard, that is, the model methods are always related to the operations of a unique database record, for example:

Class User {
    int id;
    string Name;

    public Find (id); // SQL / ORM to return the object based on the user's Id;
    public Save (); // SQL / ORM to save / update a user
    public Delete (); // SQL / ORM to delete a user.
}

// Create the user "John"
Set objUser = new User ();
objUser.Name = "John";
objUser.Save ();

My question is the following, in relation to the entity of the "User" database, we have methods that are at table level and not of record, as for example a method "getAllActiveUsers", which returns me a query object of all active users. This kind of situation today, for a lack of pattern ends up staying in the Activerecord model itself, which in my opinion does not make much sense.. Could you tell me what would be the most recommendable/elegant to address this kind of situation? I read something about Gateway and Repository Pattern that might be useful for this, but I was wondering if anyone had this same dilemma and how did to solve..

Thank you and sorry for the ignorance!

Answer 1

In my opinion it does not make sense the "save" object itself in the database, regardless if you use pure ADO or some ORM, I believe that the Repository standard is more appropriate; but of course everything depends on the scenario.

I recommend you see this tutorial of Eduardo Pires, he does a step by step and explains some patterns and how to implement them, maybe it is not the solution of all your problems, but you will start to have a new vision and from there think about your own architecture:

http://eduardopires.net.br/2014/10/tutorial-asp-net-mvc-5-ddd-ef-automapper-ioc-dicas-e-truques/

I hope I’ve helped.