Visual Studio Hacks

Define Templates for Generating Code #50

Chapter 6, Speed Hacks

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199

HACK

loaded into the template and executed -->

<propertySets>

<propertySet>

<property name="className">Car</property>

</propertySet>

<propertySet>

<property name="className">Truck</property>

</propertySet>

</propertySets>

</codeSmith>

The template element specifies the name of the template you want to exe-

cute. The namespace element specifies what namespace your generated class

should be included in. The

imports element lists all of the namespaces that

should be included in your generated class. With this template, you will

need to include

System and System.Collections as the Dictionary class is in

the

System.Collections namespace. Finally, the propertySets element con-

tains any number of property sets that will be passed to the template. In this

sample XML file, I have specified two property sets, one with the class name

of Car and the other with the class name of Truck. Property sets are the

automated method of specifying parameters when running the template.

The property set contains exactly what you would specify if you were run-

ning the template through the normal GUI.

Execute in Visual Studio

The next step is to set up and execute the CodeSmith custom tool. Just as

with other custom tools, you need to specify the name of the custom tool in

the properties page of the XML file. The name of the CodeSmith custom

tool is

CodeSmithGenerator ...