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Hello
I Need to create a template, which is "dynamic", and i'll explain the meanning of "Dynamic":
I need to have a template, that is rendered into text files (c++ code, to be exact).
the user will be able to change some things in the generated files.
After a while, a process is run to update the generated files, i'll be able to "spot" where were the templates regions and update them accordingly.
My Effort
currently, i use a "T4 Template" to create the initial render,
and in the Template, I implant C++ style comments over the regions i need to recognize later.
and another code that find that regions, and regenerates what should go between those "Comment blocks".
the problem is that it is not the same code that generate the boiler-plate, and updates the regions which costs me a lot of headache and buggy features.
it is not very intuitive to write, and the users (the ones who use the generated code) need to know Not to touch the "Comment Blocks".
Questions
How can i recognize location/blocks in a generated file without "littering" the file with "comment"/"unimportant" text?
How can i unify the code that generate the "templated blocks" both for "Generation" and "Update"
Later on, How can i make it work on Non-Code files too,
Edit
I guess I wasn't clear at what i am doing,
I am writing a tool in C#, that generates C++ code.
Also, T4 is just what i used, but any tool/library can be used while C# libraries are prefered
Any idea will be highly appreciated,
Thanks.
Now, I believe your question is totally ["open" and "opinion based"] on one side, and ["why is this code not working" without showing the code] on the other side.. but I want to try pointing some problem with the idea of "improvement" you have now.
Q2: How can I unify the code that generate the "templated blocks" both for "Generation" and "Update"
I'm strongly convinced that you should not, at least not now. Here's why:
'generate' and 'update' are happening in different directions; first is t4template->content, second is content->t4template
those two directions form different functionality
at least one of these directions requires complex logic not present in the other one
'generate' is based on T4 Engine, while 'update' will probably not be able to use it at all
..and probably many other reasons, but that's enough
Q3: Later on, How can i make it work on Non-Code files too
T4 Engine has no idea that what you generate now is a C++ file. T4 works only on a layer of "text files". If the process you have works now, you should be able to "generate" any text file already right now. The "update" part is a bit more tricky, because it depends on how you implemented it. If you assumed/used any correlaction to C++ syntax, you've got a problem. (guess why T4 Templates are called 'text templating engine', agnostic to the actual generated code language) If you kept it clean and worked as if on a free-form text file, then you're already safe to work on, well, free-form text files.
Q1: How can I recognize location/blocks in a generated file without "littering" the file with "comment"/"unimportant" text?
Well, basically, you can't and/or shouldn't. Consider a smart idea of keeping a hidden database that remembers text locations for every file. For every comment that you would put in the file, you put a row in the database, saying file: BAR\FOO.CPP | FROM: line 120 char 1 | TO: line 131 char 15 | XXX: yyy | ZZZ: aaa. That's almost no difference to having comments in the file, all information is preserved, and the file is clean now, right?
Nope. And that's because you want to detect what has changed. Let's take a highly contrived example, here's the generated file with such invisible markers that are managed by database. Each # character denotes a marker, be it start/stop/metainfo nevermind:
class FooBar : public #BaseClass#
{
public:
#void Blargh(Whizz& output);#
#int GetAge() const;#
private:
int #shoeSize#;
#
};
Those # are of course invisible, it's just an information held elsewhere, the user sees a clean file. Now, he edits it to this:
class FooBar : public BaseClass
{
public:
template<T>
void Yeeek(T& output);
int GetAge() const;
private:
int shoeSize;
};
Please note how "template" was added and method renamed to "Yeeek". There were some markers out there, I didn't show them intentionally, just look on the "template<>" line. What if it was accidentally placed a line or a byte too far or too early, so one marker too many was skipped or included? Now the detector and updater may accidentally skip "template<>", and it will be totally happy to just rename the method. This is not a problem with the detector or updater. This is a problem of markers not being visible, so the user was not able to see where should he place his edit.
That's probably the most important point. But, let's see something more algorithmic/technical. Let's try an even simpler edit. User edits the file to:
class FooBarize : publ#ic BaseCl#ass
{
int goat;
# string cheese; #
p#ublic: #
void Blargh(Whizz& output);
i#nt GetA#ge() const;
p#rivate:
int shoeSize;
};
I overlaid those invisible markes from 'the external database of markers' back onto this edited file. What has happened? Simple. User has added two lines more in an odd place (he doesnt see the markes, right?), and the database remembers old places (i.e. 'line:char', but could be 'byte', or really whatever). Now of course, database may (and should!) also remember old shape of the file, so it can see that i.e. the first # was after ":public" and the process can try to map it onto the new file.. but then, you already have a highly complex problem, and this edit was trivial. Of course, you can require the user to enter some information on how to update the markers.. but hey, he don't see them, how can he do it? And since we wanted to hide the markers from him, we probably don't want to ask him about updating them as well..
How about editing the file to:
struct FooBar : One,Two,Three,Four
{
void OhNoes();
};
I didn't care to overlay the markers, because it's utter nonsense. Now, how to map it back to the template? Is OhNoes mappable to GetAge (const removed) or to Blargh (parameters removed)? How the template base class should be updated? Which one of the new bases is the true base? Or maybe all of them? Neither you nor I can decide it, even with our combined human intelligence, not mentioning an automated process.
Of course, you can leave it as a corner case, you can emit an error to the user and inform them that their edit went to far and is unanalyzable and so on. But The complexity of reverse-mapping a change back to the model text is still there.
What I want to show you by these contrived examples is, that if you want to detect and map changes back to the original template, you should keep these markers in the generated content. Having these markers in the code allows you quickly and reliably detect:
which sections changed? (-> content between markers has changed)
which sections were offsetted by edits? (->markers are now at different position than before)
were any sections deleted? (-> both markers and content between removed)
(..)
It also allows the user to see which parts are special so he can place his edits in a reasonable way, which allows you to ignore and not support more corner cases than in the "invisible markers" case.
Finally, let's take a read-world example which you already know. T4 Template. All those ugly <%!#!#^$^!%# littering your precious template text. Couldn't they be removed? Couldn't these be kept in a separate file that describes the transformation? Or at least at the beginning or end of the file? Yes, it could. But it would make the editing a real pain - we're back to 'invisible markers' problem: each your edit to the content may require you to manually update locations of some invisible markers.
Keep the markers in the generated content.
Keep your users aware of the generation and detection and special regions.
If it's too complex for them, change the users to a more technical group, or train your userbase to be more technical. Or prevent them from editing the file. Given them some partial access so they can edit a part of the file, as an excerpt, not as a whole file. Limit their editing power to absolute minimum. Maybe it will allow you to limit the number of visible markers, maybe even down to zero, maybe at the cost of splitting and downsizing editable fragments.
I think you are going about it the wrong way. You have a XY problem here. Allowing your users to modify only part of the generated file and then trying to detect that part it's a lot of headache as you have seen.
Instead, the better solution is to leave the generated file completely unmodifiable and have some configuration available. For instance you can have a config file where users can add their own data members, initializers for them, etc.
This way you have a clear separation of the parts of your system.
The modifications done by the users are now trivially carried to the next iteration and you can easily always re-generate the output.
+------------------+
| Input: Template | ------
+------------------+ \
|
+------------------+ | Generator code +-------------------------+
| Input: Config | -------+----------------------> | Output: Generated code |
+------------------+ | |-------------------------+
|
+------------------+ |
| Input: Config | --------/
+------------------+
This system can be used to generate non-code also.
I am going to create a function in my application that is going to send som status mails to several receivers in a list.
Earlier i used plane text format on the email, but now i want to send the mail based on som html templates. I need tips reguarding a good way to insert data into these templates before sending them.
eks
%CpuStatus%
%HardriveStatus%
and so on. I have the solution for everything except a way to fill anchors like that with data. This is a WinForm application so i dont have access to the ASP functionality
Maybe this sort of thing would be the simplest?
// This would most likely be loaded from a file or database.
string emailBody = "CPU Status: %CpuStatus%\nHard Drive Status: %HardriveStatus%";
string cpuStatus = MyService.GetCpuStatus();
emailBody.Replace("%CpuStatus%", cpuStatus);
If you really wanted to make a big project out of it, you can use a webbrowser control, load it with your html file and then use the WebBrowser's Document property to get an HtmlDocument object. You can then loop through it's children (recursively) to find the tags you want to change.
Personally, I would do the .Replace method suggested previously.
I have developed a large business portal. I just realized I need my website in another language. I have researched the solutions available like
Used third party control on my website. (Does fit in my design. Not useful regarding SEO point of view. Dont want to show third party brand names.)
Create Resource files for each language.( A lot of work required to restructure pages to use text from resource files. What about the data entered by the user like Business Description. )
Are there any Other options available.
I was thinking of a solution like a when a page is created on server side then I could translate it before sending back to client. Is there any way I can do that?(to translate everything including data added from databases or through a code. And without effecting design. )
If you really need to translate your application, it's going to take a lot of hard, tedious work. There is no magic bullet.
The first thing you need to do is convert your plain text in your markup to asp:Localize controls. By using the Localize control, you can leave your existing <span> tags in place and just replace the text inside of them. There's really no way around this. Visual Studio's search and replace supports regular expression matching that may help you with this, or you can use Resharper (see below).
The first approach would be to download the open source shopping application nopCommerce and see how they handle their localization. They store their strings in a database and have a UI for editing languages. A similar approach may work well for you.
Alternatively, if you want to use Resource Files, there are two tools that I would recommend using in addition to Visual Studio: Resharper 5 (Localization Features screencast) and Zeta Resource Editor. These are the steps I would take to accomplish it using this method:
Use the "Generate Local Resource" tool in visual studio for each page
Use Resharper's "Move HTML to resource" on the text in your markup to make them into Localize controls.
Use Resharper to search out any localizable strings in your code behind and move them to the resource file as well.
Use the Globalization Rules of Code Analysis / FXCop to help find any additional problems you might face formatting numbers, dates, etc.
Once all text is in the resx files, use Zeta Resource Editor to load up all of your resx files, add new languages, and export for translation (or auto translate if you're brave enough).
I've used this approach on a site translated into 8 languages (and growing) with dozens of pages (and growing). However, this is not a user-editable site; the pages are solely controlled by the programmers.
a large switch case? use a dictionary/hashtable (seperate instance for each a language), it is much, much more effective and fast.
To Convert The Page To Arabic Language Or Other Language .
Go to :
1-page design
2-Tools
3-Generate Local Resource
4-obtain "App_LocalResources" include "filename.aspx.resx"
5-copy the file and change the name to "filename.aspx.ar.resx" to convert the page to arabic language or other .
hope to helpful :)
I found a good solution, see in http://www.nopcommerce.com/p/1784/nopcommerce-translator.aspx
this project is open source and source repository is here: https://github.com/Marjani/NopCommerce-Translator
good luck
Without installing any 3rd party tool, APIs, or dll objects, I am able to utilize the App_LocalResources. Although I still use Google Translate for the words and sentences to be translated and copy and paste it to the file as you can see in one of the screenshots below (or you can have a person translator and type manually to add). In your Project folder (using MS Visual Studio as editor), add an App_LocalResources folder and create the English and other language (resx file). In my case, it's Spanish (es-ES) translation. See screenshot below.
Next, on your aspx, add the meta tags (meta:resourcekey) that will match in the App_LocalResources. One for English and another to the Spanish file. See screenshots below:
Spanish: (filename.aspx.es-ES.resx)
English: (filename.aspx.resx)
.
Then create a link on your masterpage file with a querystring that will switch the page translation and will be available on all pages:
<%--ENGLISH/SPANISH VERSION BUTTON--%>
<asp:HyperLink ID="eng_ver" runat="server" Text="English" Font-Underline="false"></asp:HyperLink> |
<asp:HyperLink ID="spa_ver" runat="server" Text="Español" Font-Underline="false"></asp:HyperLink>
<%--ENGLISH/SPANISH VERSION BUTTON--%>
.
On your masterpage code behind, create a dynamic link to the Hyperlink tags:
////LOCALIZATION
string thispage = Request.Url.AbsolutePath;
eng_ver.NavigateUrl = thispage;
spa_ver.NavigateUrl = thispage + "?ver=es-ES";
////LOCALIZATION
.
Now, on your page files' code behind, you can set a session variable to make all links or redirections to stick to the desired translation by always adding a querystring to urls.
On PageLoad:
///'LOCALIZATION
//dynamic querystring; add this to urls ---> ?" + Session["add2url"]
{
if (Session["version"] != null)
{
Session["add2url"] = "?ver=" + Session["version"]; //SPANISH version
}
else
{
Session["add2url"] = ""; // ENGLISH as default
}
}
///'LOCALIZATION
.
On Click Events sample:
protected void btnBack_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Session["FileName.aspx"] = null;
Response.Redirect("FileName.aspx" + Session["add2url"]);
}
I hope my descriptions were easy enough.
If you don't want to code more and if its feasible with google translator then You can try with Google Translator API. you can check below code.
<script src="http://translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js?cb=googleTranslateElementInit"></script>
<script>
function googleTranslateElementInit() {
$.when(
new google.translate.TranslateElement({pageLanguage: 'en', includedLanguages: 'en',
layout: google.translate.TranslateElement.FloatPosition.TOP_LEFT}, 'google_translate_element')
).done(function(){
var select = document.getElementsByClassName('goog-te-combo')[0];
select.selectedIndex = 1;
select.addEventListener('click', function () {
select.dispatchEvent(new Event('change'));
});
select.click();
});
}
$(window).on('load', function() {
var select = document.getElementsByClassName('goog-te-combo')[0];
select.click();
var selected = document.getElementsByClassName('goog-te-gadget')[0];
selected.hidden = true;
});
</script>
Also, Find below code for <body> tag
<div id="google_translate_element"></div>
It will certainly be more work to create resource files for each language - but this is the option I would opt for, as it gives you the opportunity to be more accurate. If you do it this way you can have the text translated, manually, by someone that speaks the language (there are many companies out there that offer this kind of service).
Automatic translation systems are often good for giving a general impression of what something in another language means, but I would never use them when trying to portray a professional image, as often what they output just doesn't make sense. Nothing screams 'unprofessional!' like text that just doesn't make sense because it's been automatically translated.
I would take the resource file route over the translation option because the meaning of words in a language can be very contextual and even one mistake could undermine your site's credibility.
As you suggest Visual Studio can generate the meta resource file keys for most controls containing text but may leave you having to do the rest manually but I don't see an easier, more reliable solution.
I don't think localisation is an easy-to-automate thing anyway as text held in the database often results in schema changes to allow for multiple languages, and web HTML often need restructuring to deal with truncated or wrapped label and button text because, for example, you've translated into German or something.
Other considerations:
Culture settings - financial delimitors, date formats.
Right-to-left - some languages like arabic are written right to left meaning that the pages require rethinking as to control positioning like images etc.
Good luck whatever you go with.
I ended up doing it the hard way:
I wrote an extension method on the string class called TranslateInto
On the Page's PreRender method I grab all controls recursively based on their type (the types that would have text)
Foreach through them and text.TranslateInto(SupportedLanguages.CurrentLanguage)
In my TranslateInto method I have a ridiculously large switch statement with every string displayed to the user and its associated translation.
Its not very pretty, but it worked.
We work with a Translation CAT tool (Computer Assisted Translation) called MemoQ that allows us to translate the text while leaving all the tags and coding in place. This is very helpful when the order of words change when you translate from one language to another.
It is also very useful because it allows us to work with translators from around the world, without the need for them to have any technical expertise. It also allows us to have the translation proof read by a second translator.
We use this translation environment to translate html, xml, InDesign, Word, etc.
I think you should try Google Translate.
http://translate.google.com/translate_tools
Very easy and very very effective.
HTH
For the project that I'm currently on, I have to deliver specially formatted strings to a 3rd party service for processing. And so I'm building up the strings like so:
string someString = string.Format("{0}{1}{2}: Some message. Some percentage: {3}%", token1, token2, token3, number);
Rather then hardcode the string, I was thinking of moving it into the project resources:
string someString = string.Format(Properties.Resources.SomeString, token1, token2, token3, number);
The second option is in my opinion, not as readable as the first one i.e. the person reading the code would have to pull up the string resources to work out what the final result should look like.
How do I get around this? Is the hardcoded format string a necessary evil in this case?
I do think this is a necessary evil, one I've used frequently. Something smelly that I do, is:
// "{0}{1}{2}: Some message. Some percentage: {3}%"
string someString = string.Format(Properties.Resources.SomeString
,token1, token2, token3, number);
..at least until the code is stable enough that I might be embarrassed having that seen by others.
There are several reasons that you would want to do this, but the only great reason is if you are going to localize your application into another language.
If you are using resource strings there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
Include format strings whenever possible in the set of resource strings you want localized. This will allow the translator to reorder the position of the formatted items to make them fit better in the context of the translated text.
Avoid having strings in your format tokens that are in your language. It is better to use
these for numbers. For instance, the message:
"The value you specified must be between {0} and {1}"
is great if {0} and {1} are numbers like 5 and 10. If you are formatting in strings like "five" and "ten" this is going to make localization difficult.
You can get arround the readability problem you are talking about by simply naming your resources well.
string someString = string.Format(Properties.Resources.IntegerRangeError, minValue, maxValue );
Evaluate if you are generating user visible strings at the right abstraction level in your code. In general I tend to group all the user visible strings in the code closest to the user interface as possible. If some low level file I/O code needs to provide errors, it should be doing this with exceptions which you handle in you application and consistent error messages for. This will also consolidate all of your strings that require localization instead of having them peppered throughout your code.
One thing you can do to help add hard coded strings or even speed up adding strings to a resource file is to use CodeRush Xpress which you can download for free here: http://www.devexpress.com/Products/Visual_Studio_Add-in/CodeRushX/
Once you write your string you can access the CodeRush menu and extract to a resource file in a single step. Very nice.
Resharper has similar functionality.
I don't see why including the format string in the program is a bad thing. Unlike traditional undocumented magic numbers, it is quite obvious what it does at first glance. Of course, if you are using the format string in multiple places it should definitely be stored in an appropriate read-only variable to avoid redundancy.
I agree that keeping it in the resources is unnecessary indirection here. A possible exception would be if your program needs to be localized, and you are localizing through resource files.
yes you can
new lets see how
String.Format(Resource_en.PhoneNumberForEmployeeAlreadyExist,letterForm.EmployeeName[i])
this will gave me dynamic message every time
by the way I'm useing ResXManager
I'm currently refactoring a console application whose main responsibility is to generate a report based on values stored in the database.
The way I've been creating the report up til now is as follows:
const string format = "<tr><td>{0, 10}</td><td>
{1}</td><td>{2, 8}</td><td>{3}</td><td>{4, -30}</td>
<td>{5}</td><td>{6}</td></tr>";
if(items.Count > 0)
{
builder.AppendLine(
String.Format(format, "Date", "Id", "WorkItemId",
"Account Number", "Name", "Address", "Description"));
}
foreach(Item item in items)
{
builder.AppendLine(String.Format(format, item.StartDate, item.Id,
item.WorkItemId, item.AccountNumber,
String.Format("{0} {1}",
item.FirstName, item.LastName),
item.Address, item.Description));
}
string report = String.Format("<html><table border=\"1\">{0}
</table></html>",
builder.ToString());
(The above is just a sample...and sorry about the formatting...I tried to format it so it wouldn't require horizontal scrolling....)
I really don't like that way I've done this. It works and does the job for now...but I just don't think it is maintainable...particularly if the report becomes any more complex in terms of the html that needs to be created. Worse still, other developers on my team are sure to copy and paste my code for their applications that generate an html report and are likely to create a horrible mess. (I've already seen such horrors produced! Imagine a report function that has hundreds of lines of hard coded sql to retrieve the details of the report...its enough to make a grown man cry!)
However, while I don't like this at all...I just can't think of a different way to do it.
Surely there must be a way to do this...I'm certain of it. Not too long ago I was doing the same thing when generating tables in aspx pages until someone kindly showed me that I can just bind the objects to a control and let .NET take care of the rendering. It turned horrible code, similar to the code above, into two or three elegant lines of goodness.
Does anyone know of a similar way of creating the html for this report without hard-coding the html?
Make your app to produce XML file with raw data. Then apply an external XSLT to it which would contain HTML.
More info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/14689742.aspx
You could use a template engine like NVelocity to separate your report view and your code.
There are probably other decent template engines out there...
meziod - Another avenue to peruse is extension methods to the HtmlTextWriter object. I found a brilliant stab at just this on this very site.
HtmlTextWriter extension
I'm certain that you could leverage great potential from that...
regards - coola
Well, you could use one of the report frameworks (Crystal, MS RDL, etc) and export as html - however, I suspect that for simple data your current approach is less overhead. I might use an XmlWriter or LINQ-to-XML (rather than string.Format, which won't handle escaping)...
new XElement("tr",
new XElement("td", item.StartDate),
new XElement("td", item.Id),
new XElement("td", item.WorkItemId),
etc. Escaping is especially important for text values (name, description, etc).
You might consider using a simple template engine such as http://www.stefansarstedt.com/templatemaschine.html and separate your template from the content.
This is quite practical, allows template modification without recompiling and you still got C# power in your templates.
Microsoft SQL Reporting Services does this quite well, and can do multiple formats.
My company uses it to create PDF reports and since we have HIPAA requirements, we automatically put a password to it via a third party PDF control...
As coolashaka already mentioned, using the HtmlTextWriter is a good option, certainly if you add some useful extension methods, for example:
Simple example:
public static void WriteNav(this
HtmlTextWriter writer, List<String> navItems)
{
writer.RenderBeginTag("nav");
writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Ul);
foreach (var item in navItems)
{
writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.Ul);
writer.AddAttribute(HtmlTextWriterAttribute.Href, "~/" + item + ".html");
writer.RenderBeginTag(HtmlTextWriterTag.A);
writer.Write(item);
writer.RenderEndTag();
writer.RenderEndTag();
}
writer.RenderEndTag();
writer.RenderEndTag();
}
I know this is an old question, but Google will keep directing people here for years to come.