Service Implementations
Generator
The following table of contents provides an outline of the documentation for this generator.
1. Overview
Generates customizable C# service implementation classes for the services defined in the model, using
Xomega Framework and LINQ for Entities over the
Entity Data Model that is generated from the model separately. The generated implementations may require
little to no customizations for standard CRUD or Read List methods, or more heavy customizations,
if the operation's structure is not standard, or if it uses a lot of custom parameters.
You have several different options for writing custom code for the generated service implementations, from
inserting the custom code inline, to providing it in a partial class or a subclass.
The generator uses the type attribute on the operation, as well as the structure of its input and output parameters
to create implementation of the service operations. For any parameters that have a corresponding field on the object
with the same name, the implementation will either use it to look up the object, if it's a key input parameter,
store parameter's value on the entity, if it's a non-key input parameter, or set it from the corresponding field,
if this is an output parameter.
If there is no object field for the given parameter, the generator will output a special commented TODO placeholder
that allows you to provide inline custom code right in the generated method. If the type of the operation cannot be
determined, the generator may output an implementation with no real logic, which you can override in a subclass to
provide your own implementation.
CRUD Operations. The standard Create/Read/Update/Delete operations that the generator handles the best
use the appropriate type attribute, and have the key field(s) as output or input parameters as needed. The following
snippet illustrates the struture of the typical CRUD operations on an object with a serial auto-generated key.
ReadList Operation. An operation to read a list of objects will have the type attribute set to
"readlist", a list attribute on the output structure set to "true", as well as some input parameters as the criteria.
For reading a list of child subobjects, the input parameters may be just the key(s) of the parent object. An operation
to read a list of primary objects will typically have a special "criteria" structure that contains the fields to filter by,
an optional comparison operator parameter for each field, whose name consists of the field name and a postfix " operator",
and possibly a second parameter for the field to allow supplying a range for the BETWEEN operator, as follows.
Note, that standard CRUD and Read List operations for an object can be easily added automatically to the model by a special
model enhancement CRUD generator.
1.2 Generator outputs
This generator creates service implementation C# classes, as well as a static class for registering them for Dependency
Injection (DI) with the service container, and adds the generated classes to the specified server-side project.
For services that have customization configuration in the wcf:customize element under the object's
config element, with attributes subclass or extend set to “true”, the generator
also creates separate files with a subclass and/or partial class of the generated service implementation,
whose names end with Customized or Extended respectively, if such files don't exist yet, and can nest
them under the generated service implementation file in the project, if so configured. It will also use the name
of the customized subclass for DI registration to ensure that the subclass is used as the service implementation.
2. Configuration
The following sections describe configuration parameters used by the generator.
2.1 Generator parameters
The following table lists configuration parameters that are set as the generator’s properties.
| Parameter |
Value Example |
Description |
| Generator Name |
Service Implementations
|
The name of the current configuration of the generator that will appear in the model project and the build output. |
| Folder |
Service Layer
|
Folder path to the generator inside the Model project. The folders are separated by a backslash (\). |
| Include In Build |
True
|
A flag indicating whether or not running this generator should be included in building of the model project. |
| Output |
| Output Path |
../MySolution.Services.Entities /Services/{Module/}{File}.cs |
Relative path where to output files with generated service implementations. The path may contain {Module/} and {File}
placeholders to output files by module and service respectively. |
| Custom Path |
|
Relative path where to output override classes for the generated service implementations. If not set, then the OutputPath
will be used. The path must contain a {File} placeholder to output files by service. |
| Nest Custom File |
True |
Whether or not to nest custom file under the auto-generated base file in the project. Applies only if both files are output
to the same directory.
|
| Add To Project |
../MySolution.Services.Entities /MySolution.Services.Entities.csproj |
Relative path to the project file to add the generated files to. The project will be reloaded every time you run the generator.
Leave it blank if you don't want generated files to be added to your project automatically.
|
| Registry File |
../MySolution.Services.Entities /Services/Services.cs |
Relative path to the file for service implementations registration with the DI service container. The registration extension method
will be derived from the file name.
|
| Parameters |
| Use Object Context |
False |
Whether to use Entity Framework's ObjectContext or DbContext. |
2.2 Model configuration
Configuration parameters for the generator that need to be also accessible to other generators are specified in the Xomega
model in the wcf:services-config element under the top level config element, which is conventionally
placed in the global_config.xom file. These parameters include the namespace for the generated classes, as shown below.
2.3 Common configurations
There expected to be just one configuration of this generator in the model, with the parameter values as illustrated above.
3. How to use the generator
The sections below provide some details on how to work with the generator.
3.1 Running the generator
You can run this generator either for the entire model, or for individual files by selecting them in the model project,
and running the generator from the context menu.
You can rerun the generator when you change the structure of operations or the related configuration. Normally, this will
require re-running other generators that depend on the same model elements, such as generators of service and data contracts,
UI views and data objects. Therefore, this generator should be included in the build of the model project in the configuration,
in order to allow to easily regenerate all service implementations along with other artifacts.
3.2 Customizing the output
The generated service implementation classes allow you to intermingle your custom code with the generated code both to provide
implementation for the parameters that the generator doesn't know how to handle, and to add custom behavior to the implementation.
For this, the generated code will contain special placeholders starting with a commented CUSTOM_CODE_START marker followed
by the marker text explaining the intended purpose of the custom code, and ending with a CUSTOM_CODE_END marker, as follows.
The custom code placeholders for the pieces that the generator doesn't know how to handle properly will have a special TODO
tag, in order to allow you to find all such places easily, and provide the necessary implementations.
To make sure that your custom code is preserved during subsequent generator runs, you need to always place it in between
the designated markers, and also make sure that the marker text in the comment doesn't change from one run to another,
since it's used as an identifier of each custom code.
The marker text usually contains the name of the method, as well as the name of the parameter to be handled, if appropriate.
This means that renaming a parameter or an operation may result in a loss of the custom code, so you need to be careful when
doing that. If you do need to rename the custom parameters or their operation in the model, make sure you make a copy of
your custom implementation, or, better yet, version control your code, so that you could see any differences
in the generated code after you rerun the generator.
Normally, you want to minimize the amount of custom code that you provide inline, mixed in with the generated code.
To achieve that, you can add a partial class for the generated service implementation, add to it some custom methods
that take any input arguments as the context and return the needed results, and then call those methods from the
inline custom code. This way your custom code will be mostly contained in a separate file that you can easily view
and keep safe.
The generator can help you create such a partial class if you add a wcf:customize element to the object's
config element, and set the extend attribute to "true" on it, as illustrated below.
Additionally, you can set attribute subclass to "true" on the wcf:customize element, and the generator
will also create a subclass of the generated service implementation class, where you can override any operation, and it
will use the customized subclass for the DI registration. You can also add your own custom subclass or partial class
of the generated service implementation in your project, but then you will need to make sure to register that subclass
with the dependency injection service container after the generated service implementation classes are registered.
3.3 Cleaning generator’s output
This generator supports cleaning either all generated service implementations, or only the ones from the selected model files
using the Clean context menu for that generator. Normally, cleaning the generated files makes sense if you are planning to change
the output path for the generator. Also, it can be used as part of Regenerate action, which runs the Clean and then Generate
actions, when you have removed some of the services from the model, and want the generated classes deleted and removed
from the target project.
Note, that the while custom subclasses and partial classes will not be cleaned during these operations, all of your
inline customizations will be lost during Clean, so you need to be very careful when running either
Clean or Regenerate commands on the generator, or the Clean or Rebuild commands on the model project. If you have a
generated file with a service implementation that contains inline custom code that you don't want to lose during Clean,
then you need to do one of the following things:
- Remove a line saying "This file can be DELETED DURING REGENERATION IF NO LONGER NEEDED" in the header comment
of the generated file, as instructed in that comment.
- Set preserve-on-clean attribute to "true" on the wcf:customze config element of the service,
as shown below.