T4 Template Using XML

Pramod Thakur

ASP.NET MVC XMLTemplate Transformation Toolkit

5 Comments

Join the conversation! Your thoughts help the community grow.

Arunava Bhattacharjee12y ago
Actually no....I like code-first..for migration projects database approach is fine as they already have large database in place..but for new development I always prefer the code-first as it eliminates .edmx files as it is not secure much and anybody can tamper it,difficult to read, opening/changing lots of headache. See, my intention is to auto-generate some similar kind of classes in the BL. Also concurrency handling and other security majors are handled by code-first as developer has full control over it and also we can enable migrations. I am not talking about EF aspect. All are good approaches. I want to focus on T4 independently, so that I can generate auto-generated code in my wish reducing developing time writing boring similar codes all the time. :)
Arunava Bhattacharjee12y ago
Hmmm...not bad....but something I am looking currently similar to something like this : http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/ff2f08/text-template-transformation-toolkit-t4-templates-and-enti/..Need to auto-generate classes...I will add xml nodes and it will generate classes for me with property..simple POCO classes are enough...not a requirement in my project but I want to see how powerful is this tt is :)
- Pramod Thakur12y ago
  you want to implement T4 template using database first approach right... Then generate edmx file and do what i have done in this article.. Just ignore xml part..
Guest User12y ago
its pretty useful feature T4 template. its good you shared this article!
- Pramod Thakur12y ago
  thank you :)

Introduction

In this article we learn what a Text Template Transformation Toolkit (T4) template is using XML. If you are unfamiliar with the T4 template then please read my article What a T4 Template is in MVC.

Let's create an empty MVC4 project.

Go to File → Project.
Select ASP.NET MVC 4 Web Application and name it T4TemplateUsingXml.
Click Ok.
Select an Empty Project.

ASP NET MVC Project

After creating the project let's add a folder called Xml in the root directory.

ADD new Folder

Right-click on the Xml folder and add a XML file and name it Employee.xml.

ADD XML file

After creating Employee.xml paste in the following code.

<Employee>
<EmployeeDetail>
<Id>E001</Id>
<Name>Pramod</Name>
<Email>[email protected]</Email>
</EmployeeDetail>
<EmployeeDetail>
<Id>E002</Id>
<Name>Ravi Kant</Name>
<Email>[email protected]</Email>
</EmployeeDetail>
<EmployeeDetail>
<Id>E003</Id>
<Name>Rahul</Name>
<Email>[email protected]</Email>
</EmployeeDetail>
<EmployeeDetail>
<Id>E004</Id>
<Name>Deepak</Name>
<Email>[email protected]</Email>
</EmployeeDetail>
</Employee>

To create a model right-click on the Models folder and add a class and name it Employee and paste in the following code:

using System;
using System.Xml.Serialization;
namespace T4TemplateUsingXml.Models
{
[Serializable]
[XmlRoot("Employee"), XmlType("Employee")]
public class Employee
{
public string Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Email { get; set; }
}
}

Now we create a controller, right-click on the Controller folder and add a controller named HomeController.

Home Controller

And then right-click on the index code inline and choose Add View using a scaffold empty template.

Add View

Add View1

Let's run the project and see the output.

Index

Now I make a copy of List.tt and name it PramodList.tt and make some changes. After that add another view called IndexXml using a scaffold PramodList template.

//Location of List.tt is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Web\MVC 4\CodeTemplates\AddView\CSHTML

Add View List

And write some code in HomeController as in the following:

public ActionResult IndexXml()
{
string Data = Server.MapPath("~/Xml/Employee.xml");
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
ds.ReadXml(Data);
var employee = new List<Employee>();
employee = (from item in ds.Tables[0].AsEnumerable()
select new Employee
{
Id = item[0].ToString(),
Name = item[1].ToString(),
Email = item[2].ToString(),
}
).ToList();
return View(employee);
}

And run the application.
Index XML
Note: I am attaching a PramodList.tt along with the application. Please paste the PramodList.tt file into the following folder:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\Common7\IDE\ItemTemplates\CSharp\Web\MVC 4\CodeTemplates\AddView\CSHTML

In the application I am just attaching Controller, Models, Views and XML folders.

I hope you enjoy this article.

Happy coding.