JsConfig<MyClass>.ExcludePropertyNames example, not working for me - servicestack

Trying to exclude properties from a model from being included during serialization.
I am using the following syntax:
JsConfig<MyTestClass>.ExcludePropertyNames = new[] { "ShortDescription" };
Just after that I have the following:
return (from o in __someProvider.GetAll() select (new
{
o.Name,
o.ShortDescription
o.InsertDate
}).TranslateTo<MyTestClass>()).ToList()
However once result is returned from the method, it still contains "ShortDescription" field in the Json. Am I doing something wrong?

JsConfig<T>.ExcludePropertyNames appears to be checked only once for each type, in a static constructor for TypeConfig<T>. Thus, if you are configuring ExcludePropertyNames in your service class, just before returning your response, it might be too late -- the TypeConfig properties may already be set up and cached for MyTestClass. I was able to reproduce this.
A more reliable alternative is to move all of your JsConfig<T> configuration to your AppHost setup code.
If you really do need to do this in your service class, e.g. if you are only conditionally excluding property names, then an alternative approach would be to ensure that JsConfig.IncludeNullValues is false (I believe it is by default) and in your service code set ShortDescription to null when appropriate.

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How to use ObjectContext with Model Builder?

Is there a way we can use ObjectContext with DbContext's ModelBuilder? We don't want to use POCO because we have customized property code that does not modify entire object in update, but only update modified properties. Also we have lots of serialisation and auditing code that uses EntityObject.
Since poco does create a proxy with EntityObject, we want our classes to be derived from EntityObject. We don't want proxy. We also heavily use CreateSourceQuery. The only problem is EDMX file and its big connection string syntax web.config.
Is there any way I can get rid of EDMX file? It will be useful as we can dynamically compile new class based on reverse engineering database.
I would also like to use DbContext with EntityObject instead of poco.
Internal Logic
Access Modified Properties in Save Changes which is available in ObjectStateEntry and Save them onto Audit with Old and New Values
Most of times we need to only check for Any condition on Navigation Property for example
User.EmailAddresses.CreateSourceQuery()
.Any( x=> x.EmailAddress == givenAddress);
Access Property Attributes, such as XmlIgnore etc, we rely heavily on attributes defined on the properties.
A proxy for a POCO is a dynamically created class which derives from (inherits) a POCO. It adds functionality previously found in EntityObject, namely lazy loading and change tracking, as long as a POCO meets requirements. A POCO or its proxy does not contain an EntityObject as the question suggests, but rather a proxy contains functionality of EntityObject. You cannot (AFAIK) use ModelBuilder with EntityObject derivatives and you cannot get to an underlying EntityObject from a POCO or a proxy, since there isn't one as such.
I don't know what features of ObjectContext does your existing serialisation and auditing code use, but you can get to ObjectContext from a DbContext by casting a DbContext to a IObjectContextAdapter and accessing IObjectContextAdapter.ObjectContext property.
EDIT:
1. Access Modified Properties in Save Changes which is available in ObjectStateEntry and Save them onto Audit with Old and New Values
You can achieve this with POCOs by using DbContext.ChangeTracker. First you call DbContext.ChangeTracker.DetectChanges to detect the changes (if you use proxies this is not needed, but can't hurt) and then you use DbCotnext.Entries.Where(e => e.State != EntityState.Unchanged && e.State != EntityState.Detached) to get DbEntityEntry list of changed entities for auditing. Each DbEntityEntry has OriginalValues and CurrentValues and the actual Entity is in property Entity.
You also have access to ObjectStateEntry, see below.
2. Most of times we need to only check for Any condition on Navigation Property for example:
User.EmailAddresses.CreateSourceQuery().Any( x=> x.EmailAddress == givenAddress);
You can use CreateSourceQuery() with DbContext by utilizing IObjectContextAdapter as described previously. When you have ObjectContext you can get to the source query for a related end like this:
public static class DbContextUtils
{
public static ObjectQuery<TMember> CreateSourceQuery<TEntity, TMember>(this IObjectContextAdapter adapter, TEntity entity, Expression<Func<TEntity, ICollection<TMember>>> memberSelector) where TMember : class
{
var objectStateManager = adapter.ObjectContext.ObjectStateManager;
var objectStateEntry = objectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntry(entity);
var relationshipManager = objectStateManager.GetRelationshipManager(entity);
var entityType = (EntityType)objectStateEntry.EntitySet.ElementType;
var navigationProperty = entityType.NavigationProperties[(memberSelector.Body as MemberExpression).Member.Name];
var relatedEnd = relationshipManager.GetRelatedEnd(navigationProperty.RelationshipType.FullName, navigationProperty.ToEndMember.Name);
return ((EntityCollection<TMember>)relatedEnd).CreateSourceQuery();
}
}
This method uses no dynamic code and is strongly typed since it uses expressions. You use it like this:
myDbContext.CreateSourceQuery(invoice, i => i.details);

XText: permit invalid cross reference

I need to build a grammer containing a cross reference, which may be invalid, i.e. points to a nonexisting target. A file containing such a reference should not yield an error, but only a warning. The generator would handle this as as a special case.
How can I do this with XText?
It's not possible to create valid cross references to non-existing targets in EMF.
I would suggest to go with EAttributes instead of EReferences:
Change the feature=[EClass|ID] by feature=ID in {YourDSL} grammar.
Provide a scope calculation utility like it's done in *scope_EClass_feature(context, reference)* method in the {YourDSL}ScopeProvider class. As this scoping methods simply use the eType of the given reference the reimplementation should be straightforward.
Use this scope calculation utility in {YourDSL}ProposalProvider to propose values for the introduced EAttribute.
Optionally you can use this utility in a validation rule to add a warning/info to this EAttribute if it's not "valid".
Finally use the utility in your generator to create output based on valid target eObjects.
I also ran into this problem when creating a DSL to provide declerations of variables for a none-declerative language for a transition pahse. This method works but ask yourself if you realy want to have those nasty may-references.
You can drop the auto generated error in you UI module only. To do so, provide an ILinkingDiagnosticMessageProvider and override the function getUnresolvedProxyMessage:
class DSLLinkingDiagnosticMessageProvider extends LinkingDiagnosticMessageProvider {
override getUnresolvedProxyMessage(ILinkingDiagnosticContext context) {
if(context.context instanceof YourReference) {
// return null so the your error is left out
null
} else {
// use super implementation for others
super.getUnresolvedProxyMessage(context)
}
}
}
All linker-errors for YourReference will be missed. But be aware that there will be a dummy referenced object with all fealds null. Exspecialy the name ist lost and you can not set it due to a CyclicLinkingException. But you may create a new method that sets the name directly.
Note that the dummy object will have the type you entered in your gramma. If its abstract you can easily check witch reference is not linked.

How to auto-generate early bound properties for Entity specific (ie Local) Option Set text values?

After spending a year working with the Microsoft.Xrm.Sdk namespace, I just discovered yesterday the Entity.FormattedValues property contains the text value for Entity specific (ie Local) Option Set texts.
The reason I didn't discover it before, is there is no early bound method of getting the value. i.e. entity.new_myOptionSet is of type OptionSetValue which only contains the int value. You have to call entity.FormattedValues["new_myoptionset"] to get the string text value of the OptionSetValue.
Therefore, I'd like to get the crmsrvcutil to auto-generate a text property for local option sets. i.e. Along with Entity.new_myOptionSet being generated as it currently does, Entity.new_myOptionSetText would be generated as well.
I've looked into the Microsoft.Crm.Services.Utility.ICodeGenerationService, but that looks like it is mostly for specifying what CodeGenerationType something should be...
Is there a way supported way using CrmServiceUtil to add these properties, or am I better off writing a custom app that I can run that can generate these properties as a partial class to the auto-generated ones?
Edit - Example of the code that I would like to be generated
Currently, whenever I need to access the text value of a OptionSetValue, I use this code:
var textValue = OptionSetCache.GetText(service, entity, e => e.New_MyOptionSet);
The option set cache will use the entity.LogicalName, and the property expression to determine the name of the option set that I'm asking for. It will then query the SDK using the RetrieveAttriubteRequest, to get a list of the option set int and text values, which it then caches so it doesn't have to hit CRM again. It then looks up the int value of the New_MyOptionSet of the entity and cross references it with the cached list, to get the text value of the OptionSet.
Instead of doing all of that, I can just do this (assuming that the entity has been retrieved from the server, and not just populated client side):
var textValue = entity.FormattedValues["new_myoptionset"];
but the "new_myoptionset" is no longer early bound. I would like the early bound entity classes that gets generated to also generate an extra "Text" property for OptionSetValue properties that calls the above line, so my entity would have this added to it:
public string New_MyOptionSetText {
return this.GetFormattedAttributeValue("new_myoptionset"); // this is a protected method on the Entity class itself...
}
Could you utilize the CrmServiceUtil extension that will generate enums for your OptionSets and then add your new_myOptionSetText property to a partial class that compares the int value to the enums and returns the enum string
Again, I think specifically for this case, getting CrmSvcUtil.exe to generate the code you want is a great idea, but more generally, you can access the property name via reflection using an approach similar to the accepted answer # workarounds for nameof() operator in C#: typesafe databinding.
var textValue = entity.FormattedValues["new_myoptionset"];
// becomes
var textValue = entity.FormattedValues
[
// renamed the class from Nameof to NameOf
NameOf(Xrm.MyEntity).Property(x => x.new_MyOptionSet).ToLower()
];
The latest version of the CRM Early Bound Generator includes a Fields struct that that contains the field names. This allows accessing the FormattedValues to be as simple as this:
var textValue = entity.FormattedValues[MyEntity.Fields.new_MyOptionSet];
You could create a new property via an interface for the CrmSvcUtil, but that's a lot of work for a fairly simple call, and I don't think it justifies creating additional properties.

Checking for an attribute on a destination property inside a custom AutoMapper TypeConverter

I have a custom type converter that converts UTC DateTime properties to a company's local time (talked about here: Globally apply value resolver with AutoMapper).
I'd now like to only have this converter do its thing if the property on the view model is tagged with a custom DisplayInLocalTime attribute.
Inside the type converter, if I implement the raw ITypeConvert<TSource, TDestination> interface, I can check if the destination view model property being converted has the attribute:
public class LocalizedDateTimeConverter : ITypeConverter<DateTime, DateTime>
{
public DateTime Convert(ResolutionContext context)
{
var shouldConvert = context.Parent.DestinationType
.GetProperty(context.MemberName)
.GetCustomAttributes(false)[0].GetType() == typeof(DisplayInLocalTimeAttribute);
if (shouldConvert) {
// rest of the conversion logic...
}
}
}
So this code works just fine (obviously there's more error checking and variables in there for readability).
My questions:
Is this the correct way to go about this? I haven't found anything Googling around or spelunking through the AutoMapper code base.
How would I unit test this? I can set the parent destination type on the ResolutionContext being passed in with a bit of funkiness, but can't set the member name as all implementors of IMemberAccessor are internal to AutoMapper. This, and the fact that it's super ugly to setup, makes me this isn't really supported or I'm going about it all wrong.
I'm using the latest TeamCity build of AutoMapper, BTW.
Don't unit test this, use an integration test. Just write a mapping test that actually calls AutoMapper, verifying that whatever use case this type converter is there to support works from the outside.
As a general rule, unit tests on extension points of someone else's API don't have as much value to me. Instead, I try to go through the front door and make sure that I've configured the extension point correctly as well.

Axis SecureSocketFactory - Setting the constructor attributes

I have a customer SecureSocketFactory set to be used by Axis when making an https connection using the following property:
AxisProperties.setProperty("axis.socketSecureFactory",
"com.metavante.csp.model.manager.mobilepayments.MonitiseSSLSocketFactory");
When this class is instantiated by Axis, the constructor with a Hashtable (attributes) is called. I see the timeout attribute is set in this table. Is there anyway to set more values in this?
I would like to be able to configure the Socket Factory on a per-instance scenario instead of globally by using static or system properties.
Edit: I found out these attributes are actually the HttpSender (BasicHandler) options. I still am unable to set these dynamically though.
I figured out a way around the problem. In my code where I wanted to set the property I use:
serviceLocator.getEngine().setOption(USE_CERT_PROPERTY, new Boolean(true));
where getEngine returns the AxisEngine in use. Then in the socket factory I can:
Boolean useSMS = (Boolean) MessageContext.getCurrentContext().getProperty(OtherClass.USE_CERT_PROPERTY);
I could set the object to whatever, maybe I'll go with the certificate name I needed. Hope this helps someone.
You can retrieve the SocketFactory instance and then change or add attributes, if you are interested in modify SocketFactory behavior. But if you do this, you also should inject the HashTable attribute (with the timeout). I think there is not a final and pretty solution.
AxisProperties.setProperty("org.apache.axis.components.net.SecureSocketFactory", MyAxisSocketFactory.class.getName());
MyAxisSocketFactory factory = (MyAxisSocketFactory) SocketFactoryFactory.getFactory("https", myHashTableParams);
factory.setMyStuff();
After this code, the instance of SocketFactory will be created and configured, and ready to use in web services, or whatever ^_^

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