I've got a data provider that contains a collection of entities. I only want to be able to create a new entity through the data provider.
I.e, to create a new record I need to use:
Entity entity = Provider.AddNew();
enity.set_Properties... etc
My issue is that if I set my entities to Internal, System.Activator cannot create an Instance of them. Each of my Data Providers uses a Base class with the generic type of the entity passed through.
So at the moment my AddNew() method contains the following:
public T AddNew()
{
T added = Activator.CreateInstance<T>();
this.Collection.Add(added);
return added;
}
It's obviously not the end of the world if I can instantiate a new entity manually outside of the Data Provider namespaces, but it seems pointless considering there's no way to ever save them, so why give the option to do so?
EDIT: Forgot to mention that all my providers, entities, etc are in the same namespace.
Don't use the Activator, which relies on a public constructor. Instead use reflection to find the parameterless constructor and then call it. Something along these lines:
Type t = typeof(MyType);
var parameterlessCtor = (from c in t.GetConstructors(
BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance)
where c.GetParameters().Length == 0
select c).FirstOrDefault;
if(parameterlessCtor != null) instance = parameterlessCtor.Invoke(null);
Related
I have 2 different user account type and they both are stored in their respective tables (Members in Member table and Admin in Administrator table). Now i want to create a common function to access user info for any type of user, so i was looking a for generic function but i am stuck with returning respective class, I have create 2 class MemberInfo for normal users and AdminInfo for Admin usersNow if the generic class passed to this function is MemberInfo than it should process normal user details and return MemberInfo class, and if it's admin users, then it should return AdminInfo class.
Here is something what i have tried but unable to achieve my goal.
Public Function GetAllMembers(Of T)(ByVal accountType As AccountType) As List(Of T)
Dim T_ReturnValue As List(Of T)
Dim returnType As Type = GetType(T)
If returnType Is GetType(MemberInfo) Then
Dim _list As New List(Of MemberInfo)
With New OleDbDataAdapter("SELECT ACCOUNT_NO, COUNTRY FROM Member", Globals.DatabaseConnection)
Dim dt As New DataTable
.Fill(dt)
For Each row As DataRow In dt.Rows
Dim memberInfo As New MemberInfo
memberInfo.AccountNo = row("Account_No").ToString
memberInfo.Country = row("Country").ToString
_list.Add(memberInfo)
Next
End With
Return DirectCast(_list, List(Of T))
End If
End Function
Can anyone help me how i can return respective class, for now i wanted to return memberinfo class only.
Two ways:
You can have two overloaded functions that return different classes.
You can declare the function as Object, and return either class.
You can follow these steps.
Create an abstract class say "User" . And then Member and Admin has to extend that base class user. Assuming, both has same set of properties and that is why you have started using T to make it generic. But as you have said both has different DB table store.
If you different methods defined for Member and Admin, you can segregate them by using interface. Say Member can Send Friend request, so you can have an interface ( Say ISendRequest), that will have Send method definition only. And if Admin can Add new member ,then you can have interface say IAddMember, and Admin will implement IAddMember , Member will implement, ISendRequest.
KEY point Now, define an interface say IGetAllUser with method GetAllUser and User class has to implement that, but it will have abstract method GetAllUser. So point here is you have to have to write this one GetAllMembers, instead each derived class will have method to get corresponding List .
Sample code snippet. This can even accommodate the scenario if both Member and Admin has different properties.
But if you have same properties, then you can define a function in Base class, that takes Datatable and just sets required properties, as both member and admin has same properties. So the sole purpose of GetAllUsers implemented in Member and Admin class is to pass required table name to Data Access layer and get DataTable and pass that to function defined in base class to set required properties and build List of User.
public interface IGetAllUsers
{
List<User> GetAllUsers();
}
abstract class User : IGetAllUsers
{
public abstract List<User> GetAllUsers();
}
class Member : User
{
public override List<Member> GetAllUsers()
{
// Assuming there is data access layer, to get details
}
}
class Admin : User
{
public override List<Admin> GetAllUsers()
{
// Get all admin
}
}
Right. Before addressing your specific question, I want to start at the lower level.
In theory, an admin is a user, so at database level this should rather be implemented so that there is a [Users] table that stores all kinds of users including admins. Then you should add another table called [Admins] which links to the [Users] table through an FK and stores all additional fields that relate to admins only. This is called ISA / inheritance relation in RDBMS theory.
At application level, this will translate to two business classes, one for [User] and one for [Admin], where [Admin] will inherit from [User] class. You can then write a function that returns a [User] object. Since [Admin] inherits from [User], polymorphism will allow you to return [Admin] object from the same function. Then your caller can confirm the returned object type either through type checking, or you can store a boolean field in [Users] table called IsAdmin that will be true for administrators.
Web services cannot return an anonymous type.
If you are building a LINQ query using classes through a datacontext... you cannot construct instances of those classes in a query.
Why would I want to do this? Say I want to join three "tables" or sets of objects. I have three items with a foreign key to each other. And say the lowest, most detailed of these was represented by a class that had fields from the other two to represent the data from those. In my LINQ query I would want to return a list of the lowest, most detailed class. This is one way I have decided to "join some tables together" and return data from each of them via LINQ to SQL via a WebService. This may be bad practice. I certainly do not like adding the additional properties to the lowest level class.
Consider something like this... (please ignore the naming conventions, they are driven by internal consideration) also for some reason I need to instantiate an anonymous type for the join... I don't know why that is... if I do not do it this way I get an error...
from su in _dataContext.GetTable<StateUpdate>()
join sfs in _dataContext.GetTable<SystemFacetState>()
on new { su.lngSystemFacetState } equals new { lngSystemFacetState = sfs.lngSystemFacetState }
join sf in _dataContext.GetTable<SystemFacet>()
on new { sfs.lngSystemFacet } equals new { lngSystemFacet = sf.lngSystemFacet }
join s in _dataContext.GetTable<System>()
on new { sf.lngSystem } equals new {lngSystem = s.lngSystem}
select new
{
lngStateUpdate = su.lngStateUpdate,
strSystemFacet = sf.strSystemFacet,
strSystemFacetState = sfs.strSystemFacetState,
dtmStateUpdate = su.dtmStateUpdate,
dtmEndTime = su.dtmEndTime,
lngDuration = su.lngDuration,
strSystem = s.strSystem
}
).ToList();
Notice I have to build the anonymous type which is composed of pieces of each type. Then I have to do something like this... (convert it to a known type for transport via the web service)
result = new List<StateUpdate>(from a in qr select(new StateUpdate
{
lngStateUpdate = a.lngStateUpdate,
strSystemFacet = a.strSystemFacet,
strSystemFacetState = a.strSystemFacetState,
dtmStateUpdate = a.dtmStateUpdate,
dtmEndTime = a.dtmEndTime,
lngDuration = a.lngDuration,
strSystem = a.strSystem
}));
It is just awful. And perhaps I have created an awful mess. If I am way way off track here please guide me to the light. I feel I am missing something fundamental here when I am adding all these "unmapped" properties to the StateUpdate class.
I hope someone can see what I am doing here so I can get a better way to do it.
You can create a 'dto' class which just contains the properties you need to return and populate it instead of the anonymous object:
public class Result
{
public string lngStateUpdate
{
get;
set;
}
... // other properties
}
then use it like this:
from su in _dataContext.GetTable<StateUpdate>()
...
select new Result
{
lngStateUpdate = su.lngStateUpdate,
... // other properties
}
Nitpick note - please ditch the Hungarian notation and camel casing for properties :)
I think the answer is to create another object to serve as a DTO. This object would not be mapped to the data context and can contain fields that cross the mapped objects. This solves the problems of repetitive properties in the mapped objects, and allows for instantiation of the DTO class in the query as it is not mapped.
FYI: with respect to the problem with the join- I revisited that and I think I may have had the inner and outer components of the join switched around before.
I am trying to add new overloaded constructor to an existing type.
I tried to do it with emit namespace, however created type doesnt inherit the base class and all other methods.
And after reading some articles, i decided its not possible with .net framework built-in classes.
So I got Mono.Cecil, but couldnt find any decent example how to achieve this.
I have encountered a sample which copies methods, but not props, fields etc.
This adds an empty constructor
void AddEmptyConstructor(TypeDefinition type, MethodReference baseEmptyConstructor)
{
var methodAttributes = MethodAttributes.Public | MethodAttributes.HideBySig | MethodAttributes.SpecialName | MethodAttributes.RTSpecialName;
var method = new MethodDefinition(".ctor", methodAttributes, ModuleDefinition.TypeSystem.Void);
method.Body.Instructions.Add(Instruction.Create(OpCodes.Ldarg_0));
method.Body.Instructions.Add(Instruction.Create(OpCodes.Call, baseEmptyConstructor));
method.Body.Instructions.Add(Instruction.Create(OpCodes.Ret));
type.Methods.Add(method);
}
You will need to extend it to pass through the extra parameters.
From here
Using Breeze, what is the simplest way to populate a GUID key when an entity is created?
I'll assume that your entity is configured such that the client is responsible for setting the Guid key for new entities. That's the default for the Guid key of an Entity Framework Code First entity; it is as if the key property were adorned with [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.None)]
The obvious approach is to set the key after creating the entity and before adding it to the manager, e.g.:
function createFoo() {
var foo = fooType.createEntity();
foo.id(breeze.core.getUuid()); // Knockout implementation
manager.addEntity(foo);
}
This may be all you ever need.
On the other hand, you may find that you're creating new Foos in many places and for some strange reason you can't use the createFoo function. You certainly don't want to repeat that code.
You can extend the Foo entity type with id-setting behavior after which you'd be able to write:
function createFoo() {
var foo = fooType.createEntity(); // foo.id is set for you
manager.addEntity(foo);
}
There are two approaches to consider - custom constructor and type initializer; both are described in "Extending Entities"
Constructor
You can initialize the key inside a custom constructor. Breeze calls the constructor both when you create the entity and when it materializes a queried entity. Breeze will replace the initial key value when materializing.
Here's an example that assumes the Knockout model library.
function Foo() {
foo.id(breeze.core.getUuid()); // using KO
}
// one way to get the MetadataStore
var store = manager.metadataStore;
// register the ctor with the Foo type
store.registerEntityTypeCtor("Foo", Foo);
Pretty simple. The only downside is that Breeze will generate a Guid every time it makes an entity, whether creating a new one or materializing one from a query. It's wasted effort during materialization but so what? Well, I suppose that might become a performance issue although I wouldn't assume so until I had measured it.
Initializer
Suppose you measured and the repeated Guid generation is a serious problem (really?). You could set the key in a type initializer instead and only call the Guid generator when creating a new entity.
Breeze calls a type initializer after the entity has been created or materialized from query just before returning that entity to the application. Clearly you don't want to overwrite a materialized key from the database so you'll test the key value to make sure it's not real (i.e. to make sure you're fixing a created entity) before assigning it. Here's an example.
function fooInitializer(foo) {
var emptyGuid = "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000";
if (foo.id() !=== emptyGuid) {
foo.id(breeze.core.getUuid());
}
}
var store = manager.metadataStore;
// register the initializer; no ctor in this example
store.registerEntityTypeCtor("Foo", function(){}, fooInitializer);
Assuming you have a Guid surrogate Key on all your entities like we have in our case, you could code a createInstance factory that does the following in a very generic approach:
function createInstance(breezeEntityManager, typeName) {
var keyProperty = breezeEntityManager.metadataStore.getEntityType(typeName, false).dataProperties.filter(function (p) {
return p.isPartOfKey;
})[0];
var config = {};
config[keyProperty.name] = breeze.core.getUuid();
return breezeEntityManager.createEntity(typeName, config);
}
This way, you won't have to create an initializer for all your entities.
My scenario:
This is an ASP.NET 4.0 web app programmed via C#
I implement a repository pattern. My repositorys all share the same ObjectContext, which is stored in httpContext.Items. Each repository creates a new ObjectSet of type E. Heres some code from my repository:
public class Repository<E> : IRepository<E>, IDisposable
where E : class
{
private DataModelContainer _context = ContextHelper<DataModelContainer>.GetCurrentContext();
private IObjectSet<E> _objectSet;
private IObjectSet<E> objectSet
{
get
{
if (_objectSet == null)
{
_objectSet = this._context.CreateObjectSet<E>();
}
return _objectSet;
}
}
public IQueryable<E> GetQuery()
{
return objectSet;
}
Lets say I have 2 repositorys, 1 for states and 1 for countrys and want to create a linq query against both. Note that I use POCO classes with the entity framework. State and Country are 2 of these POCO classes.
Repository stateRepo = new Repository<State>();
Repository countryRepo = new Repository<Country>();
IEnumerable<State> states = (from s in _stateRepo.GetQuery()
join c in _countryRepo.GetQuery() on s.countryID equals c.countryID
select s).ToList();
Debug.WriteLine(states.First().Country.country)
essentially, I want to retrieve the state and the related country entity. The query only returns the state data... and I get a null argument exception on the Debug.WriteLine
LazyLoading is disabled in my .edmx... thats the way I want it.
You're doing a join without retrieving anything from it. There are multiple solutions to your problem:
Use Include to load the dependent entities: from s in ((ObjectSet<State>) _stateRepo.GetQuery).Include("Country"). The problem with this approach is that you should expose the ObjectSet directly rather than as a IQueryable if you want to avoid casting.
Use context.LoadProperty(states.First(), s => s.Country) to explicitly load the Country from the database for a given state.
Select both entities in the query: from s in ... join c ... select new { s, c }. You won't be able to access directly the state's Country property but you have it in the anonymous type.
Enable lazy loading.
Your repository implementation is very similar to mine, especially the way you are storing the ObjectContext. It works fine for me, so I don't think it's a conceptual problem.
Try using a static objectcontext (no wrapper) just to see if that fixes the problem. Perhaps there is a bug in your ContextHelper which causes your context to get disposed and recreated.