ServiceStack ProtoBuff Serialization to custom stream - servicestack

a few days ago i posted a question about Serializing the ResponseStatus property with BinaryFormatter. Mythz pointed out it wasnt the fastest way to go, so i decided to switch to another formatter. Tried ProtoBuff and MsgPack, and am on ProtoBuf now.
My real question is: im trying to grasp how Protobuf knows how ServiceStack Dto's should be serialized. I tried adding all the possible attributes to my existing dto, ProtoContract and ProtoMember(0,1,2,3,etc), but also DataContract and DataMember.
On top of that i dont use ServiceStack's own client, but try to serialize the request to an existing stream.
If i dont do this:
ServiceStack.ProtoBuf.ProtoBufFormat.Model.Add (typeof(NameSpacePlaceholder.Service.Dto.GetNodes), false);
i get an error about Types and Contracts that cannot be infered,
If i do add that piece of code, all continues great, but the deserialized object is empty.
Im using this to Serialize:
ServiceStack.ProtoBuf.ProtoBufFormat.Model.Serialize (ms, myObject);
and to Deserialize:
ServiceStack.ProtoBuf.ProtoBufFormat.Model.Deserialize (ms, null, deserializationType);
I think im missing something here. Could it have something to do with namespaces? I looked into some code from ServiceStack.ProtoBuff, it isnt so hard to understand, but i cannot get it going.
Things that are unclear to me now:
Is there a need to add Attributes to the existing DTO's ? (in ProtoBuf V2 i can also do it in code, i read, but for now i can also alter the existing DTO's)
Do i need to initialize the Request(and response) DTO's, in my Client(Serialize) as wel in my Server(Deserialize)
Is there some reason why i should not be serializing to my own Stream ?
Many thanks,

I hate it to post an answer myself, it means i havent searched enough in the first place
I learned the following attributes are very important:
[ProtoContract]
[ProtoMember(X)]
[ProtoInclude(X,typeof(DerivingClass))]
For now i learned something new: why class inheritance in DTO's is not advisable.
I've got it going now, and will try to make it real-life friendly..

Related

Azure Functions .Net 5: Is it possible to implement POCO binding somehow?

When moving my functions to .net5 I faced the fact that POCO binding that worked fine with 3.1 is not applicable with .net 5 anymore for some reason. They say it will be implemented at some point maybe, but for the certain reasons I need it now. Tried to find some hacky way to implement this, but failed. The best thought I had was to implement explicit operator in my DTO object which will cast HttpRequestData to it's type, but the problem is that HttpRequestData is an abstract type, and it's concrete implementation type is internal. After that I tried to cast the input parameter to HttpRequestData in middleware with reflection, but parameters are stored in IReadOnlyDictionary which is immutable. So I ran out of ideas now. Maybe someone found workaround to this and can kindly share, would be much appreciated.
I suppose you're using the "dotnet-isolated" mode (only way to run on .NET 5).
I'm trying to find a more elegant solution to this as well.
Meanwhile, what I did was to deserialize the data myself, inside the function.
var body = await new StreamReader(request.Body).ReadToEndAsync();
var myobject = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<MyPocoClass>(json);
I would really prefer if the runtime did it by itself, but I couln't find a way yet. I read somewhere that it is possible to create our own binding code, but I haven't tried it.
I noticed that I could bind to individual properties of the json payload, but not to an object...
I hope this arrives in Azure Functions v4 + .NET6, since it is right around the corner.

Typescript change type of the Request after checkAuth middleware

I'm pretty new to typescript and I faced the issue with extending the Request type. I actually found a solution, but it doesn't feel right to me, and seems like there might be a better way.
First, the structure. I have a middleware checkAuth that checks the Bearer token, finds the user in the database (or creates one, in case it's the first time) and adds user to the req variable.
Most people recommend modifying the Express' Request type with custom declarations. I don't like this idea, because that will put user object into all requests, even before I actually save user into req.
Another solution is what I use now:
interface ReqWithUser extends Request {
user?: {
...
}
}
This allows me to declare req: ReqWithUser. But there's a flaw. When I try to access req.user, typescript is telling me that it's possibly undefined. Well, that's exactly what I declared with user?:. If I don't put a question mark there, then typescript is mad in router, saying Property 'user' is missing in type Request. That's fair. One of the solution is to use req!.user. Solves all problems, but it still feels imperfect to me. I know the req.user is there, it's not optional, otherwise checkAuth would fail and return 401. If it didn't, the user is there. What feels like the right solution is somehow modify the req type after the checkAuth middleware. Because that's when user is added into the req. Is it possible?
The issue has nothing to do with your types, but it's the fact that Express will always emit Request and not RequestWithUser.
So in your middleware function, you will always get a Request. The only reason RequestWithUser is acceptable is because you made it optional.
Truth is the middleware / decorator pattern doesn't work that well with express. You have a few options (some of which you mentioned)
Use declaration merging to 'patch' the built-in Request. You already mentioned you don't like this though, because it's a bit of a hack.
Don't use Express' middleware system and instead write something that understands how types change with decorators. I don't know exactly what this looks like, or if this has been done before.
Whenever you want to use RequestWithUser in your controllers/middlewares start off with an assertion function to ensure that user exists (allowing you to make it non-optional).
Cast to RequestWithUser, when you need it.
All these options have drawbacks:
You don't like for the reasons mentioned. It's not always 'accurate' so you are sort of lying to Typescript for convenience.
Sounds hard to do
Requires the use of an assertion function, which means you need to do a little extra work every time you want to use the user property. This work is not needed because you as developer know.
You probably don't like casting for the same reason you don't like to use declaration merging.
By far I think 2 is the best solution, because it gives you the advantage of typing without any hacks and without having to do the extra work of an assertion function (which happens during runtime). But it means abandoning Express' Middleware system. I wouldn't know exactly how to write this code, but I am curious how if it can be done...
FYI I opened another stack overflow question, because I am curious:
Typescript typing for decorator middleware patterns

Using Sinon SinonStubbedInstance with Typescript

I'm using sinon to stub an instance of express-Request.
It looks something like this:
let req = sinon.createStubInstance(Request);
My method accepts req: Request but my IDE complains about me using SinonStubbedInstance<Request> rather than Request.
I've tried using req as Request but I still get a warning about 'may be a mistake' and that I should first cast to unknown and only then to Request.
I actually don't need anything from this parameter so I really just want to stub it quickly and easily.
When using it in the call to your method, just cast it:
myMethod(req as any);
I understand that this was posed 3 years ago, but since the only answer given is wrong, I feel obliged to comment, for someone else might benefit from it.
It's strongly discouraged to use as any and your compiler should complain about this (unless you have a very good reason not to, you should use strict compiler option).
Casting to unknown and then to your type seems unintuitive, but it is a cleaner way than casting to any. If you use any you might be better off not using typescript at all.
https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/declaration-files/do-s-and-don-ts.html#any
Consider doing
let req: SinonStubbedInstance<Request> & Request = sinon.createStubInstance(Request);
instead.
P.S.: Also, the use of let seems suspicious (sure cannot use const?), but that's a different topic.

NonProxyHosts usage with Groovy HttpBuilder

If I create my httpBuilder as shown below (assume that a proxyUsername IS set, so setCredentials is called), then calls to httpAddress-es that are passed in properly are routed through the proxy. However, the Application has some http calls that are within the local network. Can http.nonProxyHosts be used to work around this and bypass the Proxy? If so, how? Use System.setProperty? Or something on HttpBuilder?
HTTPBuilder httpBuilder = new HTTPBuilder(httpAddress)
httpBuilder.setProxy(webProxyHost, webProxyPort, webProxyProtocol)
if (proxyUsername) {
httpBuilder.client.getCredentialsProvider().setCredentials(
new AuthScope(webProxyHost, webProxyPort),
new UsernamePasswordCredentials(proxyUsername, proxyPassword))
}
}
In the code above, all of the various named elements (webProxyHost, etc) are declared as String and set accordingly.
In answer to the question in the above comment, our primary 'nonProxyHost' need was for 'localhost' which is there by default. Thus this ceased to be an issue. Did not ever really find out how to accomplish this as it is somewhat version-specific on HttpClient.
You can set the System property:
System.setProperty('http.nonProxyHosts', myNonProxyHosts)
However, if you call 'setProxy' on HttpBuilder, even if you call 'useSystemProperties' it will not. This is in their documentation, just not obvious!
Finally, you might be able to call:
httpBuilder.client.params.setParameter('http.nonProxyHosts', myNonProxyHosts)
But I do not know for sure if that is the property name and documentation of those properties is hard to find. Worse - those 'params' are deprecated - you are supposed to use the better 'config' classes, though once again finding comprehensive documentation on all the parameters for that is not the easiest! Wish I could have been of more help!

How can I know the class type of an abstract entity in a NSPredicate?

Using core data I'd like to fetch some data. My model uses some abstract entities, see attached picture, where QuantifiedIngredient is an abstract class.
I'd like to fetch Ingredient entities that have at least one RecipeQuantifiedIngredients, but in the middle is QuantifiedIngredient, which is an abstract class.
How can I do that, how can I test the actual type of an abstract class inside a NSPredicate? Any idea or suggestion?
The only clue I found was:
How can you reference child entity name in a predicate for a fetch request of the parent entity?
Would work a custom property in my QuantifiedIngredient to know if it is a RecipeQuantifiedIngredient? For instance isRecipeQuantifiedIngredient?
Thanks a lot for your help.
If recipe is required in RecipeQuantifiedIngredient, you could try to make a fetch, that checks, if there is any ingredient.recipe. I think, that will work.
The custom property, in kind of flag, will work for you too. You'll just need to set and unset it whenever you add or delete all the recipeQuantifiedIngredient.
I don't want to take the time to translate this into CoreData-speak so here is my thought in SQL:
SELECT * FROM quantifiedIngredients WHERE recipe <> NULL
or something like that. This is essentially Nikita's suggestion of using a flag, except that the 'flag' is the existence of a property. I don't know how CoreData will react when faced with GroceryQuantifiedIngredients that don't have the recipe, I think KVO will throw an exception. You might be so bold as to add a category:
#interface GroceryQuantifiedIngredients (KVOHack)
-(id)recipe;
#end
#implementation GroceryQuantifiedIngredients (KVOHack)
-(id) recipe { return nil; }
#end
This would of course require CoreData to enumerate all quantifiedIngredients, but I presume it will have to do so anyway, and a the return nil should optimize into tiny code. The other consideration is whether this will have a bad effect on the rest of your code; you will have to make that call.
Another idea which pops to mind as I finish this up is to do something like this (I'm getting really loose with my pseudo-code now):
SELECT * FROM quantifiedIngredients WHERE [i respondsToSelector:#selector(recipe)];
See what I mean? I forget whether CoreData lets you play with some kind of cursor when working with predicates or fetchedThingamabobbers, if it does than I think this is your best bet. Anyway it's Sunday afternoon so that stuff is left as a exercise for the reader.
+1 for a good question.

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