I'm looking to use MEF for a plugin system for an application I'm building. Each component I want to have an identifier on (a GUID) which I want to be able to look up against. But this ID is also something that is useful when working with the exported part.
Is there a way that I can have a Metadata attribute which contains the ID as well as a property (or method) on the exported part, short of having developers fill it out twice or use reflection to find it from the attribute?
It's likely to be a mixture of a MEF metadata attribute, and an abstract base class. I would define my plugin contract as something like:
public interface IPluginMetadata
{
Guid PluginId { get; }
}
public interface IPlugin : IPluginMetadata
{
void Initialise();
}
I've enforced that the IPlugin interface also inherits our metadata contract IPluginMetadata. Next, we can create a custom export attribute:
[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Class, Inherit = true), MetadataAttribute]
public class ExportPluginAttribute : ExportAttribute, IPluginMetadata
{
public ExportPluginAttribute(string pluginId) : base(typeof(IPlugin))
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(pluginId))
throw new ArgumentException("'pluginId' is required.", "pluginId");
PluginId = new Guid(pluginId);
}
public Guid PluginId { get; private set; }
}
You don't need to decorate the export attribute with the metadata contract IPluginMetadata, as MEF will project the properties anyway, but I prefer to do so, so if I do introduce changes to my metadata contract, then my export attribute should be updated too. No harm, no foul.
Once we've done this, we can define an abstract base class from which to implement our plugin contract:
public abstract class PluginBase : IPlugin
{
protected PluginBase()
{
var attr = GetType()
.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(ExportPluginAttribute), true)
.Cast<ExportPluginAttribute>()
.SingleOrDefault();
PluginId = (attr == null) ? Guid.Empty : attr.PluginId;
}
public virtual Guid PluginId { get; private set; }
public abstract void Initialise();
}
We can then grab the custom attribute through the abstract class's constructor, and apply the property accordingly. That we can do:
public IPlugin GetPlugin(Guid id)
{
var plugin = container
.GetExports<IPlugin, IPluginMetadata>()
.Where(p => p.Metadata.PluginId == id)
.Select(p => p.Value)
.FirstOrDefault();
return plugin;
}
And also:
[ExportPlugin("BE112EA1-1AA1-4B92-934A-9EA8B90D622C")]
public class MyPlugin : PluginBase
{
public override Initialise()
{
Console.WriteLine(PluginId);
}
}
We can see that out PluginId is exposed both through exported metadata, as well as a property of our plugin.
That code is all untested, but I hope it pushes you in the right direction.
Put the GUID in a constant, and use it for both a property and the metadata:
[Export(typeof(IFoo))]
[ExportMetadata("GUID", _guid)]
public class Foo : IFoo
{
private const string _guid = "abc";
public string Guid { get { return _guid; } }
}
Note that you can't use the Guid type instead of string, as that is not permitted by the const keyword.
Related
my current task needs to pay attention on mapping between different object types and so I recognized the very nice AutoMapper library.
So far easy to handle but these different objects contains complex interface type properties. Let me show you a code snippet:
public inferface IInterface
{
string TextProperty { get; set;}
}
public class A : IInterface
{
string TextProperty { get; set; }
}
public class B : IInterface
{
string TextProperty { get; set; }
}
public inferface IComplexInterface
{
IInterface ComplexProperty { get; set; }
}
public class ComplexA : IComplexInterface
{
IInterface ComplexProperty { get; set; }
}
public class ComplexB : IComplexInterface
{
IInterface ComplexProperty { get; set; }
}
In my case it is possible that class A is mapped to class B and vice versa.
Mapping from type A to B is no problem by configuring CreateMap<A, B>();
Mapping from class ComplexA to class ComplexB throws an exception:
Error mapping types.
Mapping types:
ComplexA -> ComplexB
NamespaceOfComplexA.ComplexA -> NamespaceOfComplexB.ComplexB
Type Map configuration:
ComplexA -> ComplexB
NamespaceOfComplexA.ComplexA -> NamespaceOfComplexB.ComplexB
Property:
ComplexProperty
A possible solution I already found here on stackoverflow could be a configuration as follows:
CreateMap<A, IInterface>().As<B>();
CreateMap<B, IInterface>().As<A>();
But in my case it is not working.
Any suggestions?
Now, I found a solution that works for me.
I use AutoMapper with a non generic approach and so I configure via:
CreateMap(typeof(ComplexA), typeof(ComplexB))
To consider properties with complex types like interfaces or even abstract classes it is possible to write an own ValueResolver that has to implement the interface:
IValueResolver<object, object, object>
with following method:
public object Resolve(object source, object destination, object destMember, ResolutionContext context)
{
//...
}
To resolve interface/abstract class properties you can configure your types by enhancing the configuration with the method ForMember(...) and define a conrete ValueResolver for the particular property as follows:
CreateMap(typeof(ComplexA), typeof(ComplexB)).ForMember("ComplexProperty", x => x.ResolveUsing(new ValueResolver(/*...*/)));
In my case it was the solution to map the interface property to a concrete implementation of my class definitions.
Hope it is useful.
I'm using the adapter support in Autofac to convert multiple types to a desired type. I also want to preserve the keys/names/metadata attached to the adapter input types, so that they exist with the same values on the adapter output types - this is needed for using IIndex<,> to resolve instances by name.
I can't figure out how to propagate the keys/names/metadata through the adapter function, since the adapter function runs during component construction, and the metadata needs to be propagated when the container is built.
Here's an example xunit test, which fails:
/// <summary>
/// Unit test to figure out how to propagate keys through adapters.
/// </summary>
public sealed class AutofacAdapterTest
{
public class A
{
public A(string key)
{
Key = key;
}
public string Key { get; private set; }
}
public class B
{
public B(string name)
{
Name = name;
}
public string Name { get; private set; }
}
public class C : B
{
public C(string name)
: base(name)
{}
}
public class LookerUpper
{
private readonly IIndex<string, B> _bIndex;
public LookerUpper(IIndex<string, B> bIndex)
{
_bIndex = bIndex;
}
public B LookupByName(string name)
{
return _bIndex[name];
}
}
[Fact]
public void TestPropagateKeysThroughAdapters()
{
var builder = new ContainerBuilder();
// Register named types
builder.RegisterType<A>().Named<A>("A").WithParameter("key", "A");
builder.RegisterType<B>().Named<B>("B").WithParameter("name", "B");
builder.RegisterType<C>().Named<C>("C").Named<B>("C").WithParameter("name", "C");
// Adapter to convert an A to a B, since it's not a subclass
builder.RegisterAdapter<A, B>((c, a) => new B(a.Key));
// Register LookerUpper, which is the only top-level type that needs to be autowired
builder.RegisterType<LookerUpper>();
var container = builder.Build();
var lookerUpper = container.Resolve<LookerUpper>();
// Test expected results
Assert.Equal("A", lookerUpper.LookupByName("A").Name);
Assert.IsType<B>(lookerUpper.LookupByName("A")); // A should have been adapted to a B
Assert.Equal("B", lookerUpper.LookupByName("B").Name);
Assert.IsType<B>(lookerUpper.LookupByName("B"));
Assert.Equal("C", lookerUpper.LookupByName("C").Name);
Assert.IsType<C>(lookerUpper.LookupByName("C"));
Assert.Throws<ComponentNotRegisteredException>(() => lookerUpper.LookupByName("D"));
}
}
The statement lookerUpper.LookupByName("A") fails with a ComponentNotRegisteredException, because the name value "A" is not propagated through the adapter function (which adapts A -> B ). If the first two lines of Asserts are commented out, the rest of the test works as expected.
I found a workable solution to this problem by using Autofac Metadata instead of Autofac keys or names. For the call to RegisterAdapter<TFrom, TTo>(Func<TFrom,TTo>), metadata is propagated from the IComponentRegistration for TFrom to the IComponentRegistration for TTo; however the keys/names are not propagated. The omission of keys may be a bug or by design, I'll file a bug with autofac to figure out which is the case and follow up.
The unfortunate part about using metadata is I can't use an IIndex<string, B> constructor parameter, so I had to use an IEnumerable<Meta<Lazy<B>>> parameter and create my own dictionary of string -> Lazy<B> to provide similiar functionality to IIndex. Here's the code that works:
/// <summary>
/// Unit test to figure out how to propagate keys through adapters.
/// </summary>
public sealed class AutofacAdapterTest
{
internal const string LookupKey = "lookup";
public class A
{
public A(string key)
{
Key = key;
}
public string Key { get; private set; }
}
public class B
{
public B(string name)
{
Name = name;
}
public string Name { get; private set; }
}
public class C : B
{
public C(string name)
: base(name)
{}
}
public class LookerUpper
{
private readonly IDictionary<string, Lazy<B>> _bLookup;
public LookerUpper(IEnumerable<Meta<Lazy<B>>> bMetas)
{
_bLookup = bMetas.ToDictionary(meta => meta.Metadata[LookupKey].ToString(), meta => meta.Value);
}
public B LookupByName(string name)
{
return _bLookup[name].Value;
}
}
[Fact]
public void TestPropagateKeysThroughAdapters()
{
var builder = new ContainerBuilder();
// Register types that will be looked up; attach metadata for the lookup key
builder.Register((c) => new A("A")).WithMetadata(LookupKey, "A");
builder.Register((c) => new B("B")).WithMetadata(LookupKey, "B");
builder.Register((c) => new C("C")).AsSelf().As<B>().WithMetadata(LookupKey, "C");
// Adapter to convert an A to a B, since it's not a subclass
builder.RegisterAdapter<A, B>((c, a) => new B(a.Key));
// Register LookerUpper, which is the only top-level type that needs to be autowired
builder.RegisterType<LookerUpper>();
var container = builder.Build();
var lookerUpper = container.Resolve<LookerUpper>();
// Test expected results
Assert.Equal("A", lookerUpper.LookupByName("A").Name);
Assert.IsType<B>(lookerUpper.LookupByName("A")); // A should have been adapted to a B
Assert.Equal("B", lookerUpper.LookupByName("B").Name);
Assert.IsType<B>(lookerUpper.LookupByName("B"));
Assert.Equal("C", lookerUpper.LookupByName("C").Name);
Assert.IsType<C>(lookerUpper.LookupByName("C"));
Assert.Throws<KeyNotFoundException>(() => lookerUpper.LookupByName("D"));
}
}
It should also be possible to create an IRegistrationSource and some extension methods that extend what is done in RegisterAdapter<TFrom, TTo>, such that the keys in TFrom are propagated to TTo - that would be an ideal solution, but potentially more work to maintain, so I'll probably stick with this.
It was fixed in Autofac version 3.5.1.
Link to the bug
Link to the fix
Is it possible to inject code to read/write the properties of an object using a PostSharp aspect? For example, consider the following class:
[ BinarySerializable ]
public class Employee {
public string Name {get; set; }
public string Title {get; set;}
}
In this case, "BinarySerializable" would be a custom aspect that introduces a custom "IBinarySerializable" interface, as follows:
public interface IBinarySerializable
{
void Write(BinaryWriter writer);
void Read(BinaryReader reader);
}
After compilation, the resulting class would look like this:
public class Employee : IBinarySerializable
{
public string Name {get; set;}
public string Title {get; set; }
void IBinarySerializable.Write(BinaryWriter writer)
{
writer.Write(Name);
writer.Write(Title);
}
void IBinarySerializable.Read(BinaryReader reader)
{
Name = reader.ReadString();
Title = reader.ReadString();
}
}
Intuitively, I feel this should be possible using PostSharp, but I need some direction as to the right approach. If this is possible, then how to handle properties that are themselves injected by some other aspect?
UPDATE: I tried creating a simple example using the built-in PSerializable aspect, but ran into problems when members inherit from .NET framework classes that do not have that attribute.
Adding the [PSerializable] attribute to the EmployeeCollection class fails to compile with "Cannot apply [PSerializable] to type 'AOPSerialization.EmployeeCollection' because the base type does not have a [PSerializable] or [Serializer] attribute."
Omitting the [PSerializable] attribute from the EmployeeCollection class throws a runtime PortableSerializationException: Cannot find a serializer for type 'AOPSerialization.EmployeeCollection'.
For example:
[PSerializable]
public class AOPComponent
{
public string Title { get; set; }
public string Description { get; set; }
public AOPComponent(string title, string description){...}
}
[PSerializable]
public class AOPComponentCollection<T> : ObservableCollection<T>
{...}
[PSerializable]
public class EmployeeCollection : AOPComponentCollection<Employee>
{...}
[PSerializable]
public class Company : AOPComponent
{
public EmployeeCollection Engineers { get; set; }
public EmployeeCollection Managers { get; set; }
}
I figured out that the Serializer and ImportSerializer attributes are used to tell the PortableFormatter which custom ISerializer or ISerializerFactory implementation to use.
But the question remains:
How to specify a custom serializer for the generic base collection type?
This approach fails because an attribute may not include type parameters.
[PSerializable, ImportSerializer(typeof(ObservableCollection<T>), typeof(AOPComponentSerializerFactory))]
public class AOPComponentCollection<T> : ObservableCollection<T> where T : AOPComponent
{...}
This approach fails because PostSharp cannot find a serializer for ObservableCollection< T >
[PSerializable, Serializer(typeof(AOPComponentSerializerFactory))]
public class AOPComponentCollection<T> : ObservableCollection<T> where T : AOPComponent
{...}
It would be possible to do that with PostSharp, but only by using the low-level PostSharp SDK, which is undocumented and unsupported.
Good news are that we already implemented this for you, in the namespace PostSharp.Serialization. The aspect is [PSerializable] and the formatter is PortableFormatter.
i have written a generic repository for my base windows which have a problem with.
lets be more specific, there is a little poco class called Unit as following:
public class Unit : BaseEntity
{
public string Name { get; set; }
private ICollection<Good> _goods;
public virtual ICollection<Good> Goods
{
get
{
if(_goods==null)
{
return new List<Good>();
}
return _goods;
}
set { _goods = value; }
}
}
which is inherited from a base entity class as :
public class BaseEntity
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public override string ToString()
{
return Id.ToString();
}
}
and this is my Add section of generic repository class:
public void Add(TEntity entity)
{
if (entity == null) return;
if (Context.Entry(entity).State == EntityState.Detached)
{
Context.Set<TEntity>().Attach(entity);
}
Context.Set<TEntity>().Add(entity);
Context.SaveChanges();
}
before add a new record, max id is fetched from db and placed in IdTextBox and them add method of base form is called which calls aforementioned Add method of base repository. here is the problem, i get this error, "The property 'Id' is part of the object's key information and cannot be modified."
there is also a mapper class that maps every property to its corresponding control which does its job fine.
What is my problem?
Thanks in advance.
i figured out that this problem is occured because of auto detect changes enability which was true.
I've run into a bit of a wall in trying to use the .NET DataAnnotations feature to provide simple validations in a derived class. I am marking up my class with the standard annotations included in .NET 4 (from the System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations namespace), then using the MS Enterprise Library v5 Validation Block to process the rules.
I have a number of objects derived from a common base class, which contains properties common to all of my objects. For validation purposes, I may have different rules for the various classes derived from this class.
Here's a simplified example:
public abstract class PersonBase
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
}
[MetadataType(typeof(CustomerMD))]
public class Customer : PersonBase
{
}
[MetadataType(typeof(ManagerMD))]
public class Manager : PersonBase
{
}
public class CustomerMD
{
[Required]
[StringLength(20, ErrorMessage="Customer names may not be longer than 20 characters.")]
public object Name { get; set; }
}
public class ManagerMD
{
[Required]
[StringLength(30, ErrorMessage = "Manager names may not be longer than 30 characters.")]
public object Name { get; set; }
}
// calling code
var invalidCustomer = new Customer {Id=1, Name=string.Empty};
var valFactory = EnterpriseLibraryContainer.Current.GetInstance<ValidatorFactory>();
var customerValidator = valFactory.CreateValidator<Customer>();
var validationResults = customerValidator.Validate(invalidCustomer);
// validationResults.IsValid should equal False, but actually equals True.
I have found that I can get the expected validation results if I push the annotations down to the base class, but then I lose the ability to fulfill different requirements for different types. Also, if I put class-specific properties on a derived class and provide metadata for these properties, I get results, but only for these properties, not the properties from the base class.
I haven't yet tried using the EntLib provided validation attributes; I'd prefer to keep the library this lives in free of dependencies from outside the core framework, if at all possible.
Am I missing something, or am I just out of luck here?
I think I have a workable solution for this.
It appears that the Metadata class will not provide validation of properties belonging to the superclass of the target object. In order to get Metadata to work with this, I needed to mark the superclass properties as virtual, then provide overrides for the properties that I wanted to validate.
Example (see question above for original example):
public abstract class PersonBase
{
public virtual int Id { get; set; }
public virtual string Name { get; set; }
}
[MetadataType(typeof(CustomerMD))]
partial class Customer : PersonBase
{
public override string Name
{
get
{
return base.Name;
}
set
{
base.Name = value;
}
}
}
With the override in place, the validator works as expected. It's a little more work, but it will get the job done.
I also tried adding annotations to the base class as fallback default rules; this allows me to have a base set of rules and override them as needed on a case by case basis. Looking good.
I run into the same issue and couldn't make it annotate a base class with Attributes using MethadataType. Like Scroll Lock I did the overriding part for base class virtual properties. On top of it I made "shadowing" for the none virtual properties.
public class BaseClass
{
public virtual int Id {get;set;}
public string Name {get;set;}
}
public class DerivedClass
{
[SomeAttribute]
public ovveride int Id {get{ return base.Id;} set{ base.Id = value;}}
[SomeAttribute]
public new string Name {get{ return base.Name;} set{ base.Name = value;}}
}