How To: Code Generators and Code Snippets

As you know, Snippets are available since Visual Studio 2005 and Add-Ins since Visual Studio 2003, but we rarely asked “Can these help our work?”. Yes, they do. It’s not important how they are created, for this are many tutorials available, important is how those could help us.

Code Generators

To create Code Generators is needed to do a laborious work but the tool will have a high degree of reusability. An easy method to create code generators in Visual Studio 2008 can be found on Sebastian Negomireanu blog. So if you have to make Rest Calls Services you need to write 20 lines of code for each group of methods BeginXXXX – EndXXXX. Because the code is always the same, except the types, we can make something clever that generates that code. So we can create code generators which works with a xml file as input, like:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <Service name="CleintsService" namespace="MyCodeGenerator.Service">
 
      <Method name="GetClients" returnType="IEnumetable&amp;lt;ClientModel&amp;gt;"/>
 
      <Method name="AddCleint" returnType="ClientModel">
         <Param name="client" type="ClientModel"/>
      </Method>
 
</Service>

For instance, if we have the module called “Clients” and we need to create CRUD for this module, all we need do is to put all the methods name in the xml. The tool will create all code in accordance with the file. Second step is to access the methods that make asynchronous data transfer. For this is exposed an interface with the name like in xml file.

public interface IClientsService
{
        void BeginGetClients(AsyncCallback callback, object state);
        IList EndGetClients(IAsyncResult result);
 
        void BeginAddClients(AsyncCallback callback, object state, ClientModel client);
        ClientModel EndAddClient(IAsyncResult result);
}

Because the backing implementation in encapsulated, we can change it, whenever we want without affecting the entire application. An example of how we use it:

 IClientsService clientsService;
        public void GetClients()
        {
            clientsService.BeginGetClients(ReceiveClients, null);
        }
 
        public void ReceiveClient(IAsyncResult ar)
        {
            IEnumerable clients = clientsService.EndGetClients(ar);
        }

Snippets

As we know the vertical programming is better than horizontal programming. Besides that, we face the problem with repetition code. We always complain about the programmer’s life, the time spent in front of computer, but we never do anything. Anyway, Snippets really helps. Snippets allow you to type single/multiple key strokes to define blocks of code. If you want to learn how to build your own, check these links out (taken from this MSDN article)

<CodeSnippets xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
   <CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
      <Header>
         <Title>ocp</Title>
         <Shortcut>ocp</Shortcut>
      </Header>
      <Snippet>
         <Code Language="CSharp">
            <![CDATA[MessageBox.Show("Hello World");]]>
         </Code>
      </Snippet>
   </CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>

This is a code for showing a MessageBox, but for instance take the IDisposable implementation. Imagine how it is to write the same code, the same comments every time …. we get crazy soon. You can find here 5 Useful Visual Studio C# Snippets or you can build your own according to your needs.

• How to: Create a Basic Code Snippet (Describes how to create a simple code snippet.)
• How to: Create a New Snippet with Imports and References (Explains how to add Imports and References elements to Visual Basic code snippets.)
• How to: Create a New Snippet with Replacements (Explains how to add customizable literals and objects to code snippets.)
• How to: Create Code Snippets for XML Files (Explains how to create a code snippet for XML files.)

Both are a way to make our life easier than before. Remember: Kepp IT Simple.

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