A Programmer with Microsoft tools

The integration with CI providers is enough straightforward – just see what environments variable those providers have. GitLab and Github has enough documentation – at https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/ci/variables/ and https://docs.github.com/en/actions/reference/environment-variables 

What I have forgot is that there are also CI providers without having necessary source control.

For example AzureDevOps can execute code taken from GitHub

More than that  Heroku stack , that has not source control , have dispersed info – see https://devcenter.heroku.com/changelog-items/630 about SOURCE_VERSION – and no more else about the what other variables it has. I have obtained those via RSCG – but no indication about what is the source control comes.

What can I do ? The solution is to avert the users – I have created https://ignatandrei.github.io/RSCG_AMS/runtimeMessages/NotFound.md .

If you create a Roslyn Source Code Generator that uses inside a base class or a static class, the best way, in my opinion , is to create 2 separate nuget packages : one for the code generated and one for the base class. This way the project that will use your RSCG will use just the nuget package that have the base class and get rid of the generator . More, you can add a third project to register some extensions to Web project .

Let’s see in practice with RSCG_AMS :

I have a NuGet package with the base class AboutMySoftware –  https://www.nuget.org/packages/AMS_Base/

The RSCG generates derived classes of AboutMySoftware  – has a dependency in the AMS_Base   –  the name is RSCG_AMS : https://www.nuget.org/packages/RSCG_AMS/ . This will generate code during the build and will not be included in the output.

Finally, I have an extension for WebAPI – AMSWebAPI – that registers the  endpoint in the Web Project to display /ams url .

I think that this is a normal organization of RSCG projects.

Also, add documentation  for each class / public item generated. There can be projects that will require this ( as a compiler/ property flag )

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();
});

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