Dynamically change a type with C# - c#

I am very new to C# and ServiceStack and I am working on a small project that consists on calling a third party API and loading the data I get back from the API into a relational database via ServiceStack's ORMLite.
The idea is to have each endpoint of the API have a reusable model that determines how it should be received in the API's response, and how it should be inserted into the database.
So I have something like the following:
[Route("/api/{ApiEndpoint}", "POST")]
public class ApiRequest : IReturn<ApiResponse>
{
public Int32 OrderId { get; set; }
public DateTime PurchaseDate { get; set; }
public String ApiEndpoint { get; set; }
}
public class ApiResponse
{
public Endpoint1[] Data { get; set; }
public String ErrorCode { get; set; }
public Int32 ErrorNumber { get; set; }
public String ErrorDesc { get; set; }
}
public class Endpoint1
{
[AutoIncrement]
public Int32 Id { get; set; }
[CustomField("DATETIME2(7)")]
public String PurchaseDate { get; set; }
[CustomField("NVARCHAR(50)")]
public String Customer { get; set; }
[CustomField("NVARCHAR(20)")]
public String PhoneNumber { get; set; }
public Int32 Amount { get; set; }
}
My first class represents the API's request with its route, the second class represents the API's response. The API's response is the same for all endpoints, but the only thing that varies is the structure of the Data field that comes back from that endpoint. I've defined the structure of one of my endpoints in my Endpoint1 class, and I am using it in my API's response class. As you can see, I am also defining a few attributes on my Endpoint1 class to help the ORM make better decisions later when inserting the data.
Ok, so the issue is that I have about 15 endpoints and I don't want to create 15 ApiResponse classes when I know the only thing that changes is that first Data field in the class.
So I made something like this:
public class DataModels
{
public Type getModel(String endpoint)
{
Dictionary<String, Type> models = new Dictionary<String, Type>();
models.Add("Endpoint1", typeof(Endpoint1));
// models.Add("Endpoint2", typeof(Endpoint2));
// models.Add("Endpoint3", typeof(Endpoint3));
// and so forth...
return models[endpoint];
}
}
I would like for getModel() to be called when the request is made so that I can pass in the ApiEndpoint field in the ApiRequest class and store the type that I want my Data field to have so that I can dynamically change it in my ApiResponse class.
In addition, there is the ORM part where I iterate over every endpoint and create a different table using the model/type of each endpoint. Something like this:
endpoints.ForEach(
(endpoint) =>
{
db.CreateTableIfNotExists<Endpoint1>();
// inserting data, doing other work etc
}
);
But again, I'd like to be able to call getModel() in here and with that define the model of the specific endpoint I am iterating on.
I've attempted calling getModel() on both places but I always get errors back like cannot use variable as a typeand others... so I am definitely doing something wrong.
Feel free to suggest a different approach to getModel(). This is just what I came up with but I might be ignoring a much simpler approach.

When I DID understand you correctly, you have different API-Calls which all return the same object. The only difference is, that the field "Data" can have different types.
Then you can simply change the type of data to object:
public object Data { get; set; }
And later simply cast this to the required object:
var data1=(Endpoint1[]) response.Data;

You're going to have a very tough time trying to dynamically create .NET types dynamically which requires advanced usage of Reflection.Emit. It's self-defeating trying to dynamically create Request DTOs with ServiceStack since the client and metadata services needs the concrete Types to be able to call the Service with a Typed API.
I can't really follow your example but my initial approach would be whether you can use a single Service (i.e. instead of trying to dynamically create multiple of them). Likewise with OrmLite if the Schema of the POCOs is the same, it sounds like you would be able to flatten your DataModel and use a single database table.
AutoQuery is an example of a feature which dynamically creates Service Implementations from just a concrete Request DTO, which is effectively the minimum Type you need.
So whilst it's highly recommended to have explict DTOs for each Service you can use inheritance to reuse the common properties, e.g:
[Route("/api/{ApiEndpoint}/1", "POST")]
public ApiRequest1 : ApiRequestBase<Endpoint1> {}
[Route("/api/{ApiEndpoint}/2", "POST")]
public ApiRequest2 : ApiRequestBase<Endpoint1> {}
public abstract class ApiRequestBase<T> : IReturn<ApiResponse<T>>
{
public int OrderId { get; set; }
public DateTime PurchaseDate { get; set; }
public string ApiEndpoint { get; set; }
}
And your Services can return the same generic Response DTO:
public class ApiResponse<T>
{
public T[] Data { get; set; }
public String ErrorCode { get; set; }
public Int32 ErrorNumber { get; set; }
public String ErrorDesc { get; set; }
}
I can't really understand the purpose of what you're trying to do so the API design is going to need modifications to suit your use-case.
You're going to have similar issues with OrmLite which is a Typed code-first POCO ORM where you're going to run into friction trying to use dynamic types which don't exist at Runtime where you'll likely have an easier time executing Dynamic SQL since it's far easier to generate a string than a .NET Type.
With that said GenericTableExpressions.cs shows an example of changing the Table Name that OrmLite saves a POCO to at runtime:
const string tableName = "Entity1";
using (var db = OpenDbConnection())
{
db.DropAndCreateTable<GenericEntity>(tableName);
db.Insert(tableName, new GenericEntity { Id = 1, ColumnA = "A" });
var rows = db.Select(tableName, db.From<GenericEntity>()
.Where(x => x.ColumnA == "A"));
Assert.That(rows.Count, Is.EqualTo(1));
db.Update(tableName, new GenericEntity { ColumnA = "B" },
where: q => q.ColumnA == "A");
rows = db.Select(tableName, db.From<GenericEntity>()
.Where(x => x.ColumnA == "B"));
Assert.That(rows.Count, Is.EqualTo(1));
}
Which uses these extension methods:
public static class GenericTableExtensions
{
static object ExecWithAlias<T>(string table, Func<object> fn)
{
var modelDef = typeof(T).GetModelMetadata();
lock (modelDef)
{
var hold = modelDef.Alias;
try
{
modelDef.Alias = table;
return fn();
}
finally
{
modelDef.Alias = hold;
}
}
}
public static void DropAndCreateTable<T>(this IDbConnection db, string table)
{
ExecWithAlias<T>(table, () => {
db.DropAndCreateTable<T>();
return null;
});
}
public static long Insert<T>(this IDbConnection db, string table, T obj, bool selectIdentity = false)
{
return (long)ExecWithAlias<T>(table, () => db.Insert(obj, selectIdentity));
}
public static List<T> Select<T>(this IDbConnection db, string table, SqlExpression<T> expression)
{
return (List<T>)ExecWithAlias<T>(table, () => db.Select(expression));
}
public static int Update<T>(this IDbConnection db, string table, T item, Expression<Func<T, bool>> where)
{
return (int)ExecWithAlias<T>(table, () => db.Update(item, where));
}
}
But it's not an approach I'd take personally, if I absolutely needed (and I'm struggling to think of a valid use-case outside of table-based Multitenancy or sharding) to save the same schema in multiple tables I'd just be using inheritance again, e.g:
public class Table1 : TableBase {}
public class Table2 : TableBase {}
public class Table3 : TableBase {}

Related

How to reflect/map models received from frontend into models at backend?

I want to make universal JSON generator for any ViewModel received from frontend. I found here that I can get type from string, but I do not know how to implement this in my case.
My idea was to send from Angular array with 2 values, first would be string that say what type is my ViewModel, and second value would be ViewModel, which I need to convert to JSON. (I need this JSONon backend for converting to other file formats, and I have some special requirements, like change of name property, etc.)
I am using MediatR, and here are my classes:
GenerateJSONQuery is input object, the one I will get from frontend.
public class GenerateJSONQuery<T> : IRequest<string>
{
public string TypeOfList { get; set; }
public List<T> Data { get; set; }
}
GenerateJSONQueryHandler is MediatR handler that will do reflection to ViewModel and generate JSON.
public class GenerateJSONQueryHandler<T> : IRequestHandler<GenerateJSONQuery<T>, string>
{
private readonly IddeeaODPDbContext _context;
private readonly IMapper _mapper;
public GenerateJSONQueryHandler(IddeeaODPDbContext context, IMapper mapper)
{
_context = context;
_mapper = mapper;
}
public async Task<string> Handle(GenerateJSONQuery<T> request, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
{
// logic for generating files, in this part I need to somehow convert
// `request.Data` to specific List<T> where
// T can be e.g. `NewbornByBirthDateViewModel`,
//`IssuedDocumentsViewModel`, `RegisteredVehiclesViewModel`, etc. etc.
}
Controller that connect IRequest and IRequestHandler is:
public class GenerateFilesController : ApiBaseController
{
public GenerateFilesController(IOptions<AppSettings> appSettings) : base(appSettings)
{
}
[HttpPost]
[SwaggerOperation(Tags = new[] { "Administration/Document" })]
public async Task<string> List<T>([FromBody] GenerateJSONQuery<T> data, [FromHeader] string Authorization)
{
return await Mediator.Send(data);
}
}
and NewbornByBirthDateViewModel is example VieWModel that I need to serialize into JSON.
public class ClientNewbornByBirthDateViewModel
{
[TranslatedFieldName("Identifier", LanguageEnum.EN)]
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Institution { get; set; }
[TranslatedFieldName("Men", LanguageEnum.EN)]
public int MaleTotal { get; set; }
[TranslatedFieldName("Women", LanguageEnum.EN)]
public int FemaleTotal { get; set; }
public int Year { get; set; }
public int Month { get; set; }
}
I am pretty sure that my thinking way is bad, and that I need to do some kind of reflection, but I do not know how. I can not send only type of ViewModel from frontend, and then select all from db with context.Set<T>() because there can be filters, and those filters depends on which ViewModel is selected, so I must pass object with data from frontend to JSONGenerate logic and then reflect it to specific ViewModel on backend.
Your application must first understand classes and their types before attempting to use reflection by passing the data type name as a parameter.
For that get all the data types using reflection on which you want to
reflect your data on then filter out by using
TypeOfList.
Use this link to get all classes details within a namespace.
How can I get all classes within a namespace?

consume JSON from webhook in C#

Hi I'm looking to create a simple webhook receiver and dump the data into a table.
This is for receiving SMS using Zipwhip. Zipwhip will send a post with JSON.
Need to receive the JSON and process.
What is a simple way to accomplish this.
Thanks in advance.
In ServiceStack your callback would just need to match the shape of your Response DTO, e.g:
[Route("/path/to/callback")]
public class CorpNotes
{
public int Departments { get; set; }
public string Note { get; set; }
public DateTime WeekEnding { get; set; }
}
// Example of OrmLite POCO Data Model
public class MyTable {}
public class MyServices : Service
{
public object Any(CorpNotes request)
{
//...
Db.Insert(request.ConvertTo<MyTable>());
}
}
Example uses Auto Mapping Utils to populate your OrmLite POCO datamodel, you may want to do additional processing before saving the data model.
If the callback can send arbitrary JSON Responses in the payload you can use an object property to accept arbitrary JSON however we'd recommend using Typed DTOs wherever possible.
This can be what the receiving method in your controller can look like on the receiving side. Make sure that your receiving and sending json object match.
[HttpPost]
[Route("Edit")]
public JsonResult Edit([FromBody] CorpNotes newMessage)
{return Json(TotalWeekNoteSearch);}
public class CorpNotes
{
public int Departments { get; set; }
public string Note { get; set; }
public DateTime WeekEnding { get; set; }
}
I am actually working on a .net project receiving Json from a Angular front end, so this should be the same concept. Also make sure that what you are receiving is truly a workable object such as.
{Departments: 4, Note: "This is notes 2020Q1W13", WeekEnding: "2020-01-25T00:00:00"}
Also try looking into this example which would be helpful in regards to webhooks.
public class MyWebHookHandler : WebHookHandler
{
public MyWebHookHandler()
{
this.Receiver = "custom";
}
public override Task ExecuteAsync(string generator, WebHookHandlerContext context)
{
CustomNotifications notifications = context.GetDataOrDefault<CustomNotifications>();
foreach (var notification in notifications.Notifications)
{
...
}
return Task.FromResult(true);
}
}
The type of the data is typically JSON or HTML form data, but it is possible to cast to a more specific type if desired.

ASP.NET Swagger IEnumerable<T>

In Swagger UI I get a model like:
Inline Model [
Inline Model 1
]
Inline Model 1 {
Id (string, optional),
ConnectionString (string, optional),
ConnectionState (string, optional)
}
for a REST Get method like:
public IEnumerable<Device> Get()
{
return new List<Device>();
}
Why is it not displayed correctly?
Adding Swagger Config from comments
public class SwaggerConfig
{
public static void Register()
{
var thisAssembly = typeof(SwaggerConfig).Assembly;
GlobalConfiguration.Configuration .EnableSwagger(c => { c.SingleApiVersion("v1", "api"); }) .EnableSwaggerUi(c => { });
}
}
public class Device
{
public string Id { get; set; }
public string ConnectionString { get; set; }
public string ConnectionState { get; set; }
}
In C# Asp.Net web api, I did this:
1- In SwaggerConfig.cs
.EnableSwagger(c =>
{//add this line
c.SchemaFilter<ApplyModelNameFilter>();
}
2- add a class that implements ISchemaFilter:
class ApplyModelNameFilter : ISchemaFilter
{
public void Apply(Schema schema, SchemaRegistry schemaRegistry, Type type)
{
schema.title = type.Name;
}
}
I got the idea from here
It seems like Swagger and/or NSwag do not handle Generic List/IList/IEnumerable types very well as a base type, perhaps because some frameworks that may try to connect with Swagger don't understand them.
I have worked around this by wrapping my List in another object. So, in your case, you may need to do something like:
public ListResponseObject<T>()
{
public IEnumerable<T> ResponseList {get; set;}
}
And then return from your controller like this:
public ListResponseObject<Device> Get()
{
return new ListResponseObject<Device>{ResponseList = new List<Device>()};
}
Not as simple... but should get it through Swagger better.
We've leveraged this to our advantage. We've applied this technique to all controllers (or something similar) so we have a more standardized response. We can also do this:
public ListResponseObject<T>() : ResponseObject<T>
{
public IEnumerable<T> ResponseList {get; set;}
}
public ResponseObject<T>()
{
public string Message {get; set;}
public string Status {get; set;}
}
And now you have a container that will make downstream handling a little easier.
Not an exact answer, but a work-around that's worked for us. YMMV
UPDATE: Here's a response to a question I posted in the NSwag GitHub issues:
I think its correct as is. Currently swagger and json schema do not support generics (only for arrays) and thus all generic types are expanded to non-generic/specific types... altough the models should be correct but you may end up with lots of classes...
An enhancement for supporting generics is planned but this will be not compliant with swagger and only work with nswag... (No support in swagger ui)

serialized property to complex type in dto with linq and automapper

I'm having a hard time figuring something out that seems as a "easy" problem.
I'm working with Microsoft Azure mobile apps .Net backend, a MSSQL database, Entity Framework code-first and AutoMapper.
So i have the following objects:
public class Route
{
public string Id { get; set; }
[...] //some other properties
public string SerializedGoogleRoute { get; set; }
}
public class DtoRoute
{
public string Id { get; set; }
[...]
public DtoGoogleRoute GoogleRoute { get; set; }
}
public class DtoGoogleRoute
{
[...] //only strings, ints,...
}
So what I want to do is: In the database save the GoogleRoute as a serialized string because it consists of many properties and I don't need them in different columns - I just want it as a serialized string in one column on the route entity.
When the Route object is projected to the DtoRoute object I want the GoogleRoute to be serialized and vice versa.
Because I'm working with LINQ / queryables I am limited to a few AutoMapper mapping options (see AutoMapper wiki). And with none of these I can't get it to work.
The problems I'm facing/what I tried:
I can't serialize/deserialize the string to the DtoGoogleRoute on mapping (with MapFrom or ConstructProjectionUsing) because LINQ obviously cannot transform the JsonConvert.Serialize/Deserialize methods to SQL statements.
I tried having a DtoGoogleRoute property in the Route object and a string property in the DtoRoute object with getters/setters doing the (de)serialization. This works almost perfectly in a custom API controller but because of the OData query filter the azure mobile app .Net backend uses in the tablecontrollers again only the serialized string property gets returned to the client (because OData/LINQ does not know of the other property).
Another option was making a complex type out of DtoGoogleRoute with Entity Framework - this works fine but not with AutoMapper because AutoMapper can't handle complex types.
For now I'm working with a custom API controller and this works. But it would be better to use the tablecontrollers because they support offline sync.
I can't imagine such a simple thing (at least I thought it was a simple thing) can't be done or is so hard to do. But maybe the problem is all the components (tablecontroller, OData, LINQ, EF, AutoMapper) involved.
I would really be thankful if someone could help.
[EDIT]: I think the fact that it works with a normal api controller and not with a tablecontroller has something to do with OData. I tried putting the same code in a tablecontroller method and in an API controller method. when calling the API controller method I can see on the server that it just calls this function and returns all the right properties to the client (checked with fiddler). But when calling the tablecontroller method the tablecontroller method "rewrites" the URL to a OData URL --> I think this is because of some of the EnableQuery or other OData attributes. Because here (although not AutoMapper but it seems like a similar project from Microsoft) it says that the EnableQuery attribute is called twice - also when the request leaves the server. And I think it cuts of the GoogleRoute property because it does not know about this property in the OData metadata or something like that.
You can achieve it like this -
internal class RouteToDtoConverter : TypeConverter<Route, DtoRoute>
{
protected override DtoRoute ConvertCore(Route source)
{
return new DtoRoute
{
Id = source.Id,
GoogleRoute = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<DtoGoogleRoute>(source.SerializedGoogleRoute)
};
}
}
internal class DtoToRouteConverter : TypeConverter<DtoRoute, Route>
{
protected override Route ConvertCore(DtoRoute source)
{
return new Route
{
Id = source.Id,
SerializedGoogleRoute = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(source.GoogleRoute)
};
}
}
public class Route
{
public string Id { get; set; }
public string SerializedGoogleRoute { get; set; }
}
public class DtoRoute
{
public string Id { get; set; }
public DtoGoogleRoute GoogleRoute { get; set; }
}
public class DtoGoogleRoute
{
public int MyProperty { get; set; }
public int MyProperty2 { get; set; }
}
AutoMapper.Mapper.CreateMap<Route, DtoRoute>()
.ConvertUsing(new RouteToDtoConverter());
AutoMapper.Mapper.CreateMap<DtoRoute, Route>()
.ConvertUsing(new DtoToRouteConverter());
var res = Mapper.Map<DtoRoute>(new Route
{
Id = "101",
SerializedGoogleRoute = "{'MyProperty':'90','MyProperty2':'09'}"
});
var org = Mapper.Map<Route>(res); //pass

How can I utilize MongoDB's Map-Reduce while reducing the impact...staying as data store agnostic as possible?

I am posing this question as it relates to a C# solution, however, I faced the same quandary in a RoR solution and simply opted to use Map-Reduce to its fullest, abandoning all hope of abstracting the data store.
MongoDB Map-Reduce seems to be THE way to perform pivots as well as other reporting queries. An alternative, which is the typical document repository manner, such as is encouraged by typical EntityFramework (EF) folks, is to move the logic to the application layer.
Without getting deep into arguments of the relative advantages of each approach, the amount of data within the data store is proven to be too large to fetch it all up into the application layer.
The following code is a proof-of-concept (POC), which yields results, but begs the question I am asking here, is there a way to reduce the impact of using Map-Reduce within a C# (any .NET) solution?
Data Models used throughout:
public class Call
{
[BsonId]
[BsonRepresentation(BsonType.ObjectId)]
public string Id { get; set; }
public DateTime? StartTime { get; set; }
public DateTime? EndTime { get; set; }
public Agent Agent { get; set; }
public Caller Caller { get; set; }
}
public class Agent : Person
{
public DateTime JoinedCompany { get; set; }
}
public class Caller : Person
{
}
Data Models used within the Map-Reduce POC:
public class AgentCallSummary
{
public ObjectId _id;
public AgentCallAggregateValues value;
public class AgentCallAggregateValues
{
public int count;
public int totalTimeOnCall;
}
}
The following code depends upon CreateCollection() and an extension method Dump(this T, string) which are being used to represent abstractly that a document collection can be obtained from whatever document store, and any document may be dumped (like LINQPad provides):
private void DemostrateMapReduce()
{
var calls = CreateCollectionCall<Call>();
calls.Count().Dump("Call Count");
const string mapJavascript =
#"function(){
var call = this;
/* averageCallTime should be fetched, simplified here, averageCallTime is used as the timeOnCall for calls that are in progress */
var averageCallTime = 15.0;
var calculateTotalTimeOnCall = function(startTime, endTime) {
if ((!endTime) || (!startTime)) {
return averageCallTime;
}
var diffMs = endTime - startTime;
return (diffMs / 1000) * 60;
};
emit(call.Agent._id, { count: 1, totalTimeOnCall: 1 });
}";
const string reduceJavascript =
#"function(key, values) {
var result = { count: 0, totalTimeOnCall: 0 };
values.forEach(function(value) {
result.count += value.count;
result.totalTimeOnCall += value.totalTimeOnCall;
});
return result;
}";
var mapReduceResult = calls.MapReduce(mapJavascript, reduceJavascript, MapReduceOptions.SetOutput(MapReduceOutput.Inline));
foreach (var item in mapReduceResult.GetInlineResultsAs<AgentCallSummary>())
{
item.Dump();
}
}

Categories