Category: .NET Core

RSCG–AMS – About My software –Documentation– part 7

Now it is time to let others know about the project. And the first step is to make documentation. And , because a picture is worth many words, here is the picture:

Also, instructions about how to use will help the programmers:

For a DLL it is simple :

<ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="AMS_Base" Version="2021.6.29.1820" />
    <PackageReference Include="RSCG_AMS" Version="2021.6.29.1820" ReferenceOutputAssembly="false" OutputItemType="Analyzer" />
  </ItemGroup>

For an ASP.NET Core application:

  <PackageReference Include="AMSWebAPI" Version="2021.6.29.1820" />
    <PackageReference Include="AMS_Base" Version="2021.6.29.1820" />
    <PackageReference Include="RSCG_AMS" Version="2021.6.29.1820" ReferenceOutputAssembly="false" OutputItemType="Analyzer" />

and the code will be

app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
{
    endpoints.MapControllers();
    endpoints.UseAMS();
});

RSCG–AMS – About My software –Reading csproj– part 6

Now it is time to put some more data – like authors and version. I have read a lot ( and tried a lot) about  CompilerVisibleProperty and  CompilerVisibleItemMetadata ( see https://github.com/dotnet/roslyn/blob/main/docs/features/source-generators.cookbook.md  ) . However, I was unable to get the data ( Authors and Version) from there .

So this is what I was get, to read the csproj near the program:

private ItemsFromCSPROJ TryGetPropertiesFromCSPROJ(GeneratorExecutionContext context)
{
    var ret= new ItemsFromCSPROJ();
    try
    {
        var dirFolder = ((dynamic)(context.Compilation)).Options?.SourceReferenceResolver?.BaseDirectory;
        if (string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(dirFolder))
            return ret;

        var file = Directory.GetFiles(dirFolder, "*.csproj");
        if (file.Length != 1)
            throw new ArgumentException($"find files at {dirFolder} :{file.Length} ");

        var xmldoc = new XmlDocument();
        xmldoc.Load(file[0]);
        XmlNode node;
        node = xmldoc.SelectSingleNode("//Authors");
        ret.Authors = node?.InnerText;
        node = xmldoc.SelectSingleNode("//Version");
        ret.Version = node?.InnerText;
        return ret;
    }
    catch(Exception )
    {
        //maybe log warning? 
        return ret;
    }

}

Next time I will show how it looks

RSCG–AMS – About My software –NuGet– part 5

The problem with RSCG is to differentiate  between the generator and the code generated. In my case , the base class should be in one nuget, the generator in other ( to can remove it from build) and the WebAPI in another.

That took me a whole day and the result is ok . Pain Points:

https://turnerj.com/blog/the-pain-points-of-csharp-source-generators 

CI action and Deploy to nuget

PackageReference Include=”Microsoft.VisualStudio.Web.CodeGeneration.Design

Now it works for WebAPI with

<PackageReference Include=”AMSWebAPI” Version=”2021.6.26.1937″ />
<PackageReference Include=”AMS_Base” Version=”2021.6.26.1937″ />
<PackageReference Include=”RSCG_AMS” Version=”2021.6.26.1937″ ReferenceOutputAssembly=”false” OutputItemType=”Analyzer” />

And I hve seen that I am not the only one to differentiate between CI servers – for example,

https://github.com/VerifyTests/DiffEngine/blob/master/src/DiffEngine/BuildServerDetector.cs

https://github.com/dotnet/Nerdbank.GitVersioning/blob/master/src/NerdBank.GitVersioning/CloudBuildServices/GitLab.cs

https://github.com/cake-build/cake/blob/develop/src/Cake.Common.Tests/Fixtures/Build/GitLabCIInfoFixture.cs

But now the work is done and you can access all AMS via web ,

app.UseEndpoints(endpoints =>
             {
                 endpoints.MapControllers();
                 endpoints.UseAMS();
             });

either to AMS/index.html , either to AMS/all .

RSCG–AMS – About My software –WebAPI– part 4

Now it should be an easy way to see in the WebAPI. First, return the data for all software that respected that :

public static IEndpointRouteBuilder UseAMS(this IEndpointRouteBuilder endpoints)
{
    endpoints.MapGet("/ams/All", async app =>
    {
                
            var data = AboutMySoftware.AllDefinitions.Select(it => it).ToArray();
        await app.Response.WriteAsJsonAsync(data);
    });
    return endpoints;
}

Now, how can I make a small html to display things ? I can do with Razor Library – but it is too big and maybe the developers do not want to have this dependency. So I decided for https://www.nuget.org/packages/Transplator/  – fairly easy to use. And is another RSCG that converts template code into C#  code.

So now the code looks like this:

public static IEndpointRouteBuilder UseAMS(this IEndpointRouteBuilder endpoints)
{
    endpoints.MapGet("/ams/All", async app =>
    {
                
            var data = AboutMySoftware.AllDefinitions.Select(it => it).ToArray();
        await app.Response.WriteAsJsonAsync(data);
    });
    endpoints.MapGet("/ams/index", app =>
    {
        var response = new ASMTemplate().Render();
        app.Response.ContentType = "text/html";
        return app.Response.WriteAsync(response);
    });
    return endpoints;
}

where the ASMTemplate is

<style>
table {
  font-family: arial, sans-serif;
  border-collapse: collapse;
  width: 100%;
}

td {
  border: 1px solid #dddddd;
  text-align: left;
  padding: 8px;
}

th{
background-color: black;
  color: white;
  border: 1px solid #dddddd;
  text-align: left;
  padding: 8px;
  }
tr:nth-child(even) {
  background-color: #dddddd;
}
</style>

<table>
<tr>
<th>Nr</td>
<th>Component</th>
<th>Date</th>
<th>Commit</th>
<th>RepoUrl</th>
</tr>

{%~ int i=1; ~%}
{%~ foreach(var item in AMS.AboutMySoftware.AllDefinitions){ %}
<tr>
<td>{% i++ %}</td>
<td>{% item.Key %} </td>
<td>{% item.Value.DateGenerated %} </td>
<td>{% item.Value.CommitId %} </td>
<td>{% item.Value.RepoUrl %}</td>
</tr>
{% } %}
</table>

It is time now to make the nuget packages.

RSCG–AMS – About My software –Multiple assemblies– part 3

The problem that I face now – and must be solved  – is what to do if I have multiple assemblies / dlls / asp.net core that wants to have the About My Software listed ? It will be a name conflict between the classes – or, if we put in different namespaces, will be difficult to find them to be listed .

For the second problem – it is relatively clear – we can have a Dictionary with the key AssemblyName and the value the instance of the AMS class for this assembly.

But how to initialize ?

First thing that I thought – static constructor . In the static constructor for AMS in the each assembly class – add to the above Dictionary the instance.

But , but … the static constructor is not called unless a class instance /static method  is called. So … ?

So ModuleInitializer to the rescue:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.runtime.compilerservices.moduleinitializerattribute?view=net-5.0

The code generated is now ( for an assembly with the name AMSConsole)

public class AboutMySoftware_AMSConsole : AboutMySoftware
{
    [System.Runtime.CompilerServices.ModuleInitializer]
    public static void Add_AboutMySoftware_AMSConsole()
    {
        AboutMySoftware.AllDefinitions.Add("AMSConsole", new AboutMySoftware_AMSConsole());
    }
    public AboutMySoftware_AMSConsole()
    {
        AssemblyName = "AMSConsole";
        DateGenerated = DateTime.ParseExact("20210624191615", "yyyyMMddHHmmss", null);
        CommitId = "not in a CI run";
        RepoUrl = "not in a CI run";
    }


}

The code to retrieve is modified like

Console.WriteLine("Show About My Software versions");
var amsAll = AboutMySoftware.AllDefinitions;
foreach (var amsKV in amsAll)
{
    var ams = amsKV.Value;

    Console.WriteLine($"{amsKV.Key}.{nameof(ams.AssemblyName)} : {ams.AssemblyName}");
    Console.WriteLine($"{amsKV.Key}.{nameof(ams.DateGenerated)} : {ams.DateGenerated}");
    Console.WriteLine($"{amsKV.Key}.{nameof(ams.CommitId)} : {ams.CommitId}");
    Console.WriteLine($"{amsKV.Key}.{nameof(ams.RepoUrl)} : {ams.RepoUrl}");
}

So far so good. Next implementation for WebAPI

RSCG–AMS – About My software –work– part 2

So now it is time to work at implementation This will be a standard RSCG –  generating code. I make also a test console to display the values.

The implementation will consider the fact that we can have many Source Control providers – each one with his ideas about variables. So I made 2 classes – one base abstract

abstract class AMS
{
    public AMS(GeneratorExecutionContext  context)
    {
        AssemblyName = context.Compilation.AssemblyName;
        GeneratedDate = DateTime.UtcNow;

    }
    public string AssemblyName { get; internal set; }
    public DateTime GeneratedDate { get; internal set; }

    public string CommitId { get; internal set; }
    public string RepoUrl { get; internal set; }
}

and one implementation for Github

//https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/environment-variables
class AMSGitHub : AMS
{
    public AMSGitHub(GeneratorExecutionContext  context):base(context)
    {
        CommitId = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("GITHUB_SHA");
        RepoUrl = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("GITHUB_SERVER_URL") + "/" + Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("GITHUB_REPOSITORY");
    }
}

The code for generator is a bit more complicated:

var nameSpace = "AMS";            
var ams = new AMSGitHub(context);
var classDef=$@"
using System;
namespace {nameSpace} {{ 
public class AboutMySoftware{{
public string AssemblyName {{ get {{ return  ""{ams.AssemblyName}"" ; }} }}
public DateTime DateGenerated {{ get {{ return DateTime.ParseExact(""{ams.GeneratedDate.ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmss")}"", ""yyyyMMddHHmmss"", null); }} }}
public string CommitId  {{ get {{ return  ""{ams.CommitId}"" ; }}}}
public string RepoUrl {{ get {{ return  ""{ams.RepoUrl}"" ; }}}}
}}
        
}}";

The console to test has the following code

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Console.WriteLine("Show About My Software versions");
    var ams = new AboutMySoftware();
    Console.WriteLine($"{nameof(ams.AssemblyName)} : {ams.AssemblyName}");
    Console.WriteLine($"{nameof(ams.DateGenerated)} : {ams.DateGenerated}");
    Console.WriteLine($"{nameof(ams.CommitId)} : {ams.CommitId}");
    Console.WriteLine($"{nameof(ams.RepoUrl)} : {ams.RepoUrl}");
}

and the output , in GitHub actions , is

Show About My Software versions
AssemblyName : AMSConsole
DateGenerated : 06/24/2021 03:16:51
CommitId : d8cb041470d93f68a4dc7fca7d131c207db8ab69
RepoUrl : https://github.com/ignatandrei/RSCG_AMS

RSCG–AMS – About My software –idea – part 1

Every product should have an About page . In the About page should be listed

  1. The product name
  2. The version  of the product
  3. Link to latest version ?
  4. Built date+ time
  5. The commit ID
  6. The authors
  7. Link to the License
  8. Other components version and link to about
  9. Third Party notices
  10. Repository  link ( github, gitlab, …)
  11. Documentation Link
  12. Release Notes link
  13.   Maybe log file ?
  14. Maybe latest errors ?
  15. Maybe system.info ?

 

This should be available for

  1. any dll – as a class
  2. any console project – as Console.WriteLine
  3. for any ASP.NET Core app
    1.   as a class
    2. as a  WebAPI
    3. as an HTML UI

You can see an example at https://netcoreblockly.herokuapp.com/AMS

Benchmarking RSCG vs Reflection

I make a microservices Buffet . In this I consider having email as a service . When the DevOps wants email, he can choose between various plugins ( simple smtp email, gmail, exchange, others). Those plugins can have various properties – that must be edited by the primary administrator of the microservice. The properties can be discovered at runtime ( via Reflection ) o r at build time ( via Roslyn Source Code Generators  – RSCG ).

But – we should see what is faster, right ?   And the feeling is that RSCG is always faster – but it is , really ? Let’s see…

So = let’s make a test with https://github.com/dotnet/BenchmarkDotNet . You can have the source code by going to https://github.com/ignatandrei/AOP_With_Roslyn/tree/master/AOPMethods .

First , the class that is tested

public partial class EmailSmtpClientMS 
{

    public EmailSmtpClientMS()
    {

        Port = 25;

    }
    public string Name { get; set; }


    public string Type
    {
        get
        {
            return this.GetType().Name;
        }
    }
    public string Host { get; set; }
    public int Port { get; set; }

    public string Description
    {
        get
        {
            return $"{Type} {Host}:{Port}";
        }
    }
}

 

Second, with AOPMethods I generate the read properties values – properties that  you can read – via a dictionary and via a switch. This can be achieved simply :

[AutoMethods(template = TemplateMethod.CustomTemplateFile, CustomTemplateFileName = "ClassToDictionary.txt")]
    public partial class EmailSmtpClientMS 

And this will be generated by RSCG for the switch

protected object GetValueProperty(string propName)
{
    switch (propName)
    {
        //true true
        case "Name":
            return this.Name;


        //true false
        case "Type":
            return this.Type;


        //true true
        case "Host":
            return this.Host;


        //true true
        case "Port":
            return this.Port;


        //true false
        case "Description":
            return this.Description;



        default:
            throw new ArgumentException("cannot find property " + propName);
    }
}

and for the dictionary

private IDictionary<string, PropertyHelper> MyProperties()
{
    var data = new Dictionary<string, PropertyHelper>();
    PropertyHelper ph;
    ph = new PropertyHelper();
    ph.Name = "Name";
    ph.Type = "string";
    ph.CanRead = !false;
    ph.CanWrite = !false;

    ph.Value = this.Name;

    data.Add("Name", ph);
    //Name string     
    ph = new PropertyHelper();
    ph.Name = "Type";
    ph.Type = "string";
    ph.CanRead = !false;
    ph.CanWrite = !true;

    ph.Value = this.Type;

    data.Add("Type", ph);
    //Type string     
    ph = new PropertyHelper();
    ph.Name = "Host";
    ph.Type = "string";
    ph.CanRead = !false;
    ph.CanWrite = !false;

    ph.Value = this.Host;

    data.Add("Host", ph);
    //Host string     
    ph = new PropertyHelper();
    ph.Name = "Port";
    ph.Type = "int";
    ph.CanRead = !false;
    ph.CanWrite = !false;

    ph.Value = this.Port;

    data.Add("Port", ph);
    //Port int     
    ph = new PropertyHelper();
    ph.Name = "Description";
    ph.Type = "string";
    ph.CanRead = !false;
    ph.CanWrite = !true;

    ph.Value = this.Description;

    data.Add("Description", ph);
    //Description string     

    return data;

}

 

The spec for benchmark are :


BenchmarkDotNet=v0.13.0, OS=Windows 10.0.19043.1052 (21H1/May2021Update)
Intel Core i7-6600U CPU 2.60GHz (Skylake), 1 CPU, 4 logical and 2 physical cores
.NET SDK=5.0.301
  [Host]     : .NET 5.0.7 (5.0.721.25508), X64 RyuJIT
  DefaultJob : .NET 5.0.7 (5.0.721.25508), X64 RyuJIT

 

Third, I benchmark obtaining one single property – the Host – via the 3 methods:

public partial class EmailSmtpClientMSOneProperty: EmailSmtpClientMS
{
    [Benchmark]
    public string GetHostReflection()
    {
        return this.GetType().GetProperty("Host").GetValue(this).ToString();
    }
    [Benchmark]
    public string GetHostViaDictionary()
    {
        return this.ReadMyProperties()["Host"].ToString();
    }
    [Benchmark]
    public string GetHostViaSwitch()
    {
        return this.GetValueProperty("Host").ToString();
    }
}

And in Program.cs

BenchmarkRunner.Run<EmailSmtpClientMSOneProperty>(
    ManualConfig
        .Create(DefaultConfig.Instance)
        .WithOption(ConfigOptions.DisableOptimizationsValidator, true)
        );

( of course, I have added on the class
//[SimpleJob(RuntimeMoniker.Net50)]
//[ShortRunJob(RuntimeMoniker.Net50)]
//[DryJob(RuntimeMoniker.Net50)]
[Orderer(SummaryOrderPolicy.FastestToSlowest, MethodOrderPolicy.Declared)]
//[SimpleJob(RuntimeMoniker.NetCoreApp31)]
[RPlotExporter]
[CsvMeasurementsExporter]
[MemoryDiagnoser]
[HtmlExporter]
[MarkdownExporterAttribute.GitHub]
)
The results are in ns –so, the less/smaller , that means  better results.

The results are here in HTML form :

 

 

Method Mean Error StdDev Median Gen 0 Gen 1 Gen 2 Allocated
GetHostViaSwitch 18.07 ns 0.434 ns 0.549 ns 18.02 ns
GetHostReflection 144.13 ns 2.582 ns 5.501 ns 142.13 ns
GetHostViaDictionary 451.59 ns 12.363 ns 33.635 ns 441.72 ns 0.3057 640 B

The graphic may be more interesting:

 

Surprised ? The RSCG Switch Property is indeed the fastest one – but the Reflection is faster than RSCG Property Dictionary ( or , at least , for my implementation).

However, I realized that in real life , I will retrieve all properties in a Dictionary to be edited . So all implementations should occur the penalty of creating a Dictionary . Time for next benchmark . This time , the code is

[Benchmark]
public IDictionary<string,object> GetHostReflection()
{
    var props = this.GetType()
        .GetProperties()
        .Where(it=> it.CanWrite)
        .ToDictionary(it => it.Name, it=>it.GetValue(this));
        ;
    return props;
                
}
[Benchmark]
public IDictionary<string, object> GetHostViaDictionary()
{
    var props = this.ReadMyProperties();
    return props;
            
}
[Benchmark]
public IDictionary<string, object> GetHostViaSwitch()
{
    var props = ReadProperties
        .ToDictionary(it => it, it => GetValueProperty(it));
    return props;
            
            
}

 

and the results are:

Method Mean Error StdDev Median Gen 0 Gen 1 Gen 2 Allocated
GetHostViaDictionary 462.1 ns 14.70 ns 40.97 ns 453.6 ns 0.3052 640 B
GetHostViaSwitch 479.5 ns 7.34 ns 7.54 ns 479.9 ns 0.2708 568 B
GetHostReflection 973.0 ns 78.35 ns 231.01 ns 911.5 ns 0.1984 416 B

 

Now the graphic will help:

 

Interesting , right ?

Reflection = as normal –  is the slowest one. But the difference between RSCG switch and RSCG Dictionary is not too much…

Conclusion 1:  the feeling  was right at the end. But – the first result was deceiving

Conclusion 2: Creating a dictionary is more time consuming than a simple reflection for one property retrieved

Conclusion 3: I do prefer RSCG Dictionary vs RSCG switch – less work for me as a programmer and similar time results.

Conclusion 4: do not over engineer if you do not feel the need . For just one property, Reflection is better….

Conclusion 5: This is not final. I should also write the values of the properties . Maybe next time a new benchmark….

RecordVisitors–packages and thanks–part 12

Now it is time to see the outdated packages and say thanks to the people that help me created all this project.

For this I install https://github.com/KrystianKolad/DotnetThx . The result is https://github.com/ignatandrei/RecordVisitors/blob/main/src/RecordVisitors/thanks.md

Also, I have installed dotnet outdated tool ( new version!) to see what I should improve

Also , I have installed dotnet-project-licenses to let the user see the license for the project . You can see all the licences at https://github.com/ignatandrei/RecordVisitors/blob/main/src/RecordVisitors/licenses.txt 

Also, a tool that worth is  dotnet-depends – make a try ( allow to run several seconds). You will be impressed by Norton Commander interface…

The CI in github yml it is

– name: helper – see Outdated, thanks , licences and depends

run: |

    cd src/RecordVisitors/       

    dotnet dotnet-outdated

    dotnet dotnet-thx

    dotnet dotnet-project-licenses -i .\RecordVisitors.sln

    # dotnet dotnet-depends

RecordVisitors–Static Analysis with SonarCloud–part 11

Now I should see if the code that I have written is enough good. One way to determine is static analysis – and sonarclould.io is open for open source.

It was pretty simple to setup

1.  I have install the tool  dotnet-sonarscanner

2. Add the secrets from sonnarcloud to Github

3. Add JAVA to the CI Github Action

    – name: Set up JDK 11

uses: actions/setup-java@v1

with:

java-version: 1.11

4. run the build with

cd src/RecordVisitors

dotnet dotnet-sonarscanner begin /k:”ignatandrei_RecordVisitors” /o:”ignatandrei-github” /d:sonar.login=”${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}” /d:sonar.host.url=”https://sonarcloud.io”

dotnet build

dotnet dotnet-sonarscanner end /d:sonar.login=”${{ secrets.SONAR_TOKEN }}”

And now I have quality gate A –  see https://sonarcloud.io/dashboard?id=ignatandrei_RecordVisitors

Andrei Ignat weekly software news(mostly .NET)

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