The CodeFluent Entities Blog

In a previous post we announced that CodeFluent Entities natively support JSON/REST.

In this post we’re going to see how to take advantage of the generated JSON/REST architecture. Thanks to JSON WCF services we should be able to call server methods from the client of our choice. To illustrate that we’re going to create a back end application exposing JSON WCF services that will be consumed in a console application. As you’re going to see, all the hard work will be done by CodeFluent Entities.

Creating the solution

Start by creating a new CodeFluent Project. We’ll use the “ContactManager Sample Model” for the purpose of this article.

• Add a new Class Library project named “ContactManager” to your solution. It will be used to host the generated files corresponding to your Business Object model and JSON WCF service’s contracts.
• Add a new SQL Server Database project named “ContactManager.Persistence” to your solution. It will be used to host your generated SQL scripts.
• Add a new Empty ASP.NET Website project named “ContactManager.BackEnd” to your solution and add a reference to the ContactManager project and create a “Services” folder. It will be used to host the JSON WCF Services.
• Add a new Console Application project named “ContactManager.Client” to your solution and add a reference to the ContactManager project and to CodeFluent.Runtime.dll. We will use it to make some calls via JSON WCF to the backEnd application and display the results in the console. Also, by default, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 sets the target framework to .NET Framework 4 Client Profile. Go to the property of your project and change its target to .NET Framework 4.
  

Adding the producers

• Add a Business Object Model Producer and set its Target Directory to the ContactManager project. Also add it a Service Object Model Sub Producer and configure it so JSON been enabled and no proxy been produced. This producer will generate the complete WCF-based communication layer (service, contracts) with native JSON/REST support.
• Add a SQL Server Producer and set its target directory to the ContactManager.Persistence project.
• Add a Template Producer and set its Target Directory to the the Services folder of your ContactManager.BackEnd project. Also set its Source Directory to “CodeFluent Entities installation folder > Modeler >Templates > ServiceModel > JsonWebServices > Services”.

Configuring the solution

Configure your solution so it first start your  ContactManager.BackEnd application and then your ContactManager.Client application.

Generating code

Now to start generating code, build your CodeFluent Entities project called ContactManager.Model.

Here is the visual studio solution you should have by now, each project containing the generated code (your database should have been created too):

Writing the client

When the WCF Service Object Model Producer is set to generate JSON web services, it automatically adds two extra operations to the Business Object model and Services:
1. JsonGet
2. JsonPost

As the name suggests, you can use those methods to read (JsonGet) or write (JsonPost) by calling any other operation available on the service.

So why not use the other operations directly instead?
Well you can (using HTTP POST method and the header Content-Type set to application/json), but what’s interesting with those JsonGet/Post methods is that they add extra JSON oriented features. One of them being able to wrap .NET exception in a nice and simple JavaScript-friendly object.

Note: JsonGet and JsonPost methods are not fully documented yet but a new version of the documentation is on its way.

Here we want to use the JsonGet method in our console application to call the default generated LoadAll method and write the result on the console:

we can break the task down to the following steps:

• Set up the URL with all parameters
• Send a GET WebRequest
• Receive the Json formatted data
• Deserialize the object(s)
• Write the result on the console

Therefore, our console application should look something like this:

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.IO;
using CodeFluent.Runtime.Utilities;
using ContactManager;

namespace ContactManager.ConsolApp
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Type a key to start");
            Console.ReadKey();

            string url = "http://localhost:62738/Services/ContactManager.Customer.svc/JsonGet?method=LoadAll";
            string jsonContent = GET(url);

            //Let's display the RAW JSON content first:
            Console.WriteLine("JSON Content:");
            Console.WriteLine(jsonContent + Environment.NewLine);

            //Then each Customer:
            Console.WriteLine("From deserialized content:");
            CustomerCollection customers = JsonUtilities.Deserialize<CustomerCollection>(jsonContent);
            foreach (Customer c in customers)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(c.Trace());
            }
        }

    }
}

Notes: the URL should be changed according to your configuration (port number, and service name should be updated);

The GET method simply downloads and returns the internet string response as follow:

// Returns JSON string
private static string GET(string url)
{
    using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
    {
        try
        {
            return client.DownloadString(url);
        }
        catch (WebException ex)
        {
            WebResponse errorResponse = ex.Response;
            using (Stream responseStream = errorResponse.GetResponseStream())
            {
                StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(responseStream, new System.Text.UTF8Encoding());
                String errorText = reader.ReadToEnd();

                Console.WriteLine(errorText);
            }
            throw;
        }
    }
}

But where do we find the JSON Serializer? Well the CodeFluent Runtime (CodeFluent.Runtime.dll) comes with a very convenient class: JsonUtilities.
The JsonUtilities class is a simple yet powerful JSON Serializer allowing you to convert your .NET objects into JSON and vice versa. See that post for more information.

Running the application

Hitting Ctrl+F5 should build and launch your backend application and then your console application. Typing a key should retrieve all the customers using JSON WCF services and display them on the console as follow:

Type a key to start
JSON Content:
[{"EntityKey":"1","EntityDisplayName":"info@softfluent.com","RowVersion":[0,0,0,0,0,0,7,209],”Id”:1,”EmailAddress”:”info@softfluent.com”,”Password”:null,
“FirstName”:”Thib”,”LastName”:”Nes”,”FullName”:null,”BirthdayDate”:”\/Date(-62135596800000)\/”,”LoyaltyProgramMember”:false,”LicenseNo”:null,”HasPreAccidents”:false,
“Age”:0,”AddressId”:-1,”Rentals”:[],”PaymentType”:0,”EntityState”:1}]

From deserialized content:
[Id=1,EmailAddress=info@softfluent.com,Password=,FirstName=Thib,
LastName=Nes,FullName=,BirthdayDate=1/1/0001 12:00:00 AM,LoyaltyProgramMember=False,LicenseNo=,HasPreAccidents=False,Age=0,
Address=<null>,_addressId=-1,Rentals=[Count=0],PaymentType=Cash, EntityState=Unchanged]
Press any key to continue . . .

What about saving data? Well, we would use the JsonPost method instead of JsonGet and use the JsonUtilities.Serialize method to serialize our content. The Main method of our console application would look like this:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    string url = "http://localhost:62738/Services/ContactManager.Customer.svc/JsonPost?type=EntitySaveCall";
    Customer c = new Customer { FirstName = "John", LastName = "Doe", Age = 42 };
    string jsonContent = JsonUtilities.Serialize(c);
    
    POST(url, jsonContent);
}

And the POST method to send the data:

// POST a JSON string
private static void POST(string url, string jsonContent)
{
    using (WebClient client = new WebClient())
    {
        string response = string.Empty;
        //We need to specify that we are sending Json contents, or our
        //requests will be rejected by the services
        client.Headers.Add("Content-Type: json; charset=UTF-8");
        client.Encoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
        try
        {
            response = client.UploadString(url, jsonContent);
        }
        catch (WebException ex)
        {
            WebResponse errorResponse = ex.Response;
            using (Stream responseStream = errorResponse.GetResponseStream())
            {
                StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(responseStream, new System.Text.UTF8Encoding());
                String errorText = reader.ReadToEnd();

                Console.WriteLine(errorText);
            }
            throw;
        }
    }
}

This is it! This post highlighted the fact that we can directly consume JSON WCF services generated by CodeFluent Entities from the client of our choice (for instance for Windows Phone, iOS or Android to name but a few). CodeFluent Entities doing all the hard work for us by generating applications based on REST/JSON architecture in a couple of minutes.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Thibault NESTOR