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New Post: Can't Debug T4 Template using VS2012 feature

jradxl — Wed, 22 May 2013 16:27:34 GMT

Remove the T4Toolbox.tt line, and it debugs just fine
With it present, I get the exception as shown above

<#@ template  debug="true" hostSpecific="true" #>
<#@ output extension=".cs" #>
<#@ include file="T4Toolbox.tt" #>
<#
    var t = new test();
#>
<#+
public class test
{
    public test()
    {
    }
}
#>

As afar as I can see the source for the VS2012 is not available here.
Pity...

New Post: Can't Debug T4 Template using VS2012 feature

jradxl — Wed, 22 May 2013 11:53:01 GMT

Hi,
If I use the context menu item "Debug T4 Template" it always crashes as the debuging starts.
If I use the old method of Debugger.Launch() and Break() I can debug just fine.

Since the stack trace mentions T4Toolbox, I'm just wondering if this is a T4Toolbox issue?

Thanks

Server stack trace:
at T4Toolbox.VisualStudio.TransformationContextProvider.T4Toolbox.ITransformationContextProvider.GetMetadataValue(Object hierarchyObject, String fileName, String metadataName)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink._PrivateProcessMessage(IntPtr md, Object[] args, Object server, Object[]& outArgs)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Messaging.StackBuilderSink.SyncProcessMessage(IMessage msg)

Exception rethrown at [0]:
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.HandleReturnMessage(IMessage reqMsg, IMessage retMsg)
at System.Runtime.Remoting.Proxies.RealProxy.PrivateInvoke(MessageData& msgData, Int32

New Post: When will Proprocessed Templates be support in VS2012?

bit7 — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:54:04 GMT

Hi Oleg,

We rely on Preprocessed Templates for some of the work that we do. We are migrating to VS2012 very soon. Will you be adding preprocessed template support anytime soon?

Mike

New Post: Where to put code that use the generated files ?

softlion — Sun, 05 May 2013 18:17:46 GMT

Hi Oleg,
i use T4Toolbox since 5 years.

I have a .tt file which generates N files by calling Render() on classes inheriting CSharpTemplate.

At the end of the .tt file, i want to load one of the generated files, but the file never exists at this time. If i run the template by hand in VS2012, all files are generated ok.

Where to put this code ?

Benjamin.

New Post: Unknown Type CSharpTemplate

slawekal — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 20:38:18 GMT

So in other words, when I add a new Template item to a project, the symbol CSharpTemplate will be unresolved? Actually, I'll get no intellisense whatsoever for all T4Toolbox-related types and members, e.g. TransformationContext or CSharpTemplate, right?
At least, this is what's happening for me now and I wonder if this is normal or am I just doing something wrong. I have working T4 files, but everything from T4Toolbox is unrecognised, so it looks like there are errors in these files. Not to mention the fact, that lack of intellisense is painful while developing.
OlegSych wrote:

In Visual Studio 2010, there is a project item template that will automatically add the required reference to your project.

Have I understood you correctly then, that there are some references, that might be added manually in VS2012? Would that help?
I'd be pleased, if you'd explain this for me.

New Post: Moving T4 Toolbox LINQ to SQL classes generator into our source code

kainhart — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 23:13:15 GMT

I've been looking into moving our Linq to SQL generation over to using T4 templates for some time now but have had a tough time finding a project that has been maintained and allows for at least results that are comparable with the out of the box experience offered by DBML within Visual Studio.

I've checked out the T4 Toolbox along with many of your very informative posts and just recently began looking into how to use T4 Toolbox for the purpose described above. Unfortunately we are using Visual Studio 2012 and since your pulling out support for the out of the box generator for Linq to SQL I'm following your suggestion and looking for some support for how to get some of the capabilities pushed directly into our project source code. You did mention NuGet being a better source for distributing such T4 templates but I don't see any decent ones available for Linq to SQL that are not also trying to lock users into some new custom ORM. At this point I'm wondering how much effort it would take to pull out the LINQ to SQL related parts of the templates that used to be supplied with the T4 Toolkit and place them directly into my project.

I've attempted to do this but after remapping a few files paths to point to a folder where I stuck the .tt files I get this result when trying to run my main DataContext level template DataClasses1.tt which looks like below.

<#@ template language="C#" debug="True" #>
<#@ output extension="cs" #>
<#@ include file="T4Toolbox.tt" #>
<#@ include file="LinqToSql.tt" #>
<#
    // Generate entity classes from a LINQ to SQL class model (.dbml file)
    LinqToSqlGenerator generator = new LinqToSqlGenerator();
    generator.DbmlFile = "DataClasses2.dbml"
    generator.Run();
#>

When I do this see errors like the ones listed below which makes it look like I will need somehow to get the code parts of the T4 Toolbox like TransactSqlTemplate in order to get this stuff working. Seeing that I don't want to create my own Visual Studio add-in to get this working I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction or give a yes or no answer about where what I'm attempting to do is feasible given that I would rather spend less than a couple of hours to get this working.

Error 1 Compiling transformation: The type or namespace name 'TransactSqlTemplate' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlTableBase.tt 9 52 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 2 Compiling transformation: The type or namespace name 'Database' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlDataContextTemplate.tt 30 12 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 3 Compiling transformation: The type or namespace name 'Connection' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlDataContextTemplate.tt 137 34 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 4 Compiling transformation: 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplatingDFF1CCA611C0C4496ECFC13E4C4CD837B4EE01EAECC109EF12C6697C3023A14BFC1CB5084D3FAB4B5A337AF8F9B9E92D7E1B27894AF2916A961947C6928737EE.GeneratedTextTransformation.LinqToSqlDataContextTemplate.Database' is a 'property' but is used like a 'type' c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlDataContextTemplate.tt 166 34 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 5 Compiling transformation: The type or namespace name 'Table' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlDataContextTemplate.tt 191 34 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 6 Compiling transformation: The type or namespace name 'Association' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlEntityClassTemplate.tt 56 45 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 7 Compiling transformation: The type or namespace name 'Column' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlEntityClassTemplate.tt 62 45 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 8 Compiling transformation: 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplatingDFF1CCA611C0C4496ECFC13E4C4CD837B4EE01EAECC109EF12C6697C3023A14BFC1CB5084D3FAB4B5A337AF8F9B9E92D7E1B27894AF2916A961947C6928737EE.GeneratedTextTransformation.LinqToSqlEntityClassTemplate.AccessModifier(Association)' is a 'method' but is used like a 'type' c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlEntityClassTemplate.tt 1343 36 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 9 Compiling transformation: The type or namespace name 'MemberModifier' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?) c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlEntityClassTemplate.tt 1354 36 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 10 Compiling transformation: 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplatingDFF1CCA611C0C4496ECFC13E4C4CD837B4EE01EAECC109EF12C6697C3023A14BFC1CB5084D3FAB4B5A337AF8F9B9E92D7E1B27894AF2916A961947C6928737EE.GeneratedTextTransformation.LinqToSqlTableBaseTemplate.Table' is a 'property' but is used like a 'type' c:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql\LinqToSqlTableBase.tt 46 40 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 11 A namespace cannot directly contain members such as fields or methods C:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\DataClasses1.cs 1 1 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest
Error 12 A namespace cannot directly contain members such as fields or methods C:\Users\me\Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Projects\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest\LinqToSql.cs 1 1 LinqToSqlT4TemplateTest

New Post: running t4 script file from the command prompt

OlegSych — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:04:56 GMT

While you can transform simple text templates using TextTransform, the T4 runtime environment it provides is completely different from Visual Studio. T4 Toolbox does not support TextTransform at this time.

New Post: running t4 script file from the command prompt

tjdwl — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:25:53 GMT

I have a VS 2012 console project which generates the code files by using T4 Toolbox. Currently, I run the code generation script file by selecting 'Run custom Tool' from the popup menu in VS. I wonder if I can run the script file from the Command Prompt.

New Post: T4ScriptFileGenerator VS2012

OlegSych — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:13:38 GMT

In Visual Studio 2012 the name of the Custom Tool is T4Toolbox.ScriptFileGenerator.

New Post: Unknown Type CSharpTemplate

OlegSych — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:12:41 GMT

T4Toolbox in Visual Studio 2012 does not support pre-processed templates at this time. In Visual Studio 2010, there is a project item template that will automatically add the required reference to your project.

New Post: T4ScriptFileGenerator VS2012

mika76 — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 10:02:23 GMT

Ho do you make an xml file generate a template with T4ScriptFileGenerator?

I try adding "T4ScriptFileGenerator" as a Custom Tool on my xml file in my project, but nothing happens.

New Post: Unknown Type CSharpTemplate

kmcbrearty — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 06:34:34 GMT

I am trying to create a preprocessed template in my project. The problem is that I continue to get an unknown type. I am assuming that I need to add a reference to my project but I am not sure where to find the dll. Can you please point me in the right direction.

New Post: Using T4 Toolbox To Generate Java Executables

drdexter333 — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:15:30 GMT

Never mind.

I think I fixed it.

The variable declaration needed to be at the bottom

<#@ template language="C#" #>
<#@ template debug="true" #>
<#@ assembly name="System.Core" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Linq" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Text" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections.Generic" #>

<#= stringVal #> 

<#+ public string stringVal;  #>

New Post: Using T4 Toolbox To Generate Java Executables

drdexter333 — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:33:54 GMT

Ok, So i set everything up like so in my form:

using (myStream = openFileDialog1.OpenFile())
{
string file = Path.GetFileName(openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory + openFileDialog1.FileName);
string text = File.ReadAllText(openFileDialog1.FileName);
    try
    {
        MacroTemplate mt = new MacroTemplate();
        mt.stringVal = text;
        File.WriteAllText("MyClass.java", mt.TransformText());
    }
    catch (Exception ex)
    {
       MessageBox.Show("An error occurred" + ex.GetBaseException());
    }
}

Then in my template:

<#@ template language="C#" #>
<#@ template debug="true" #>

<#+
    public string stringVal;
    
#>

My java file is empty and I cannot figure out how to write output statement in the template file since each time I attempt to code a block following this line:

<#+
    public string stringVal;
    
#>

I get this error:
Error 1 A Statement cannot appear after the first class feature in the template. Only boilerplate, expressions and other class features are allowed after the first class feature block.

How do i write this variable out to the file?

Thanks

Doug

New Post: Windows Forms and Generating Code

OlegSych — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 03:07:03 GMT

You might want to start here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee844259.aspx

New Post: Using T4 Toolbox To Generate Java Executables

OlegSych — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 03:05:24 GMT

In a Windows application, you can only use a preprocessed (a.k.a. runtime) template. Look at the .CS file the runtime template generates in your project to understand how to use it. You probably want to declare the "stringVal" as a property in a class feature block.

<#+ 
    public string StringVal;
#>

That way, you will be able to set it in your windows form like so:

preMacro macro = new preMacro();
macro.StringVal = "Value";

After that, you can save the generated code in a .java file:

File.WriteAllText("MyClass.java", macro.TransformText());

You may find the following articles helpful in understanding preprocessed templates: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee844259.aspx

New Post: Windows Forms and Generating Code

drdexter333 — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 18:30:56 GMT

I'm kind of struggling in an attempt to create a dynamic code generator using T4

I have a windows app that reads mutilple files.
For each file read, I need to collection of code snippets, in a java file.

I used Tangible t4 Editor and created a new tt file like this:

<#@ template debug="true" hostSpecific="true" #>
<#@ output extension=".java" #>
<#@ Assembly Name="System.Core" #>
<#@ Assembly Name="System.Windows.Forms" #>
<#@ import namespace="System" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.IO" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Diagnostics" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Linq" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections.Generic" #> 
<#
   // insert your template code here the tempalte code will be syntaxhighlighted 
   // and you will have intellisense for all namespaces in the full edition
   string Greeting = "Hello";
#>
// This is the output code from your template
// you only get syntax-highlighting here - not intellisense
namespace JAVA_UTILITY{
  class MyGeneratedClass{
     static void main (string[] args){
       System.Console.WriteLine("<#= Greeting #>, the time is now: <#=System.DateTime.Now.ToString() #>");
}

     
     
  }

<#+
  // Insert any template procedures here
  void foo(){}
#>

The problem I am having a hard time wrapping my head around is,

How this tt.file gets called at run time
How do I access and set say a collection of properties within this .tt file?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Doug

New Post: Using T4 Toolbox To Generate Java Executables

drdexter333 — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 14:10:32 GMT

Ok I get that.

What I'm trying to do is generate some java code on the fly using these t4 templates

Here's where I am stuck:

I attempted to create a standard text template with an output type of .java, however I'm trying to figure out how to access properties from that template in order to set values at runtime.

IE:

<#@ template debug="false" hostspecific="false" language="C#" #>
<#@ output extension=".java" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.IO"#>
public class macro {

    public string stringVal;
    public static void main(String[] args) {}
}

At runtime in my windows form I need to

grab that stringVal variable and set it to some macro code
wrap it up into a java class file.

I wasn't so sure that I could do it with a text template, so I attempted a preprocessed template:

<#@ template language="C#" #>
<#@ assembly name="System.Core" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Linq" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Text" #>
<#@ import namespace="System.Collections.Generic" #>

public class preMacro{

    <# String stringVal= String.Empty;  #> 

        
}

Now it seems i have access to this object in my windows form:

preMacro macro = new preMacro();

however I'm not sure how to access that stringVal in the template and set it at runtime

thanks

New Post: Using T4 Toolbox To Generate Java Executables

OlegSych — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 02:50:07 GMT

T4 Toolbox is a Visual Studio extension for generating text files.

New Post: v11.3 - Setting Output.BuildAction?

OlegSych — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 02:47:30 GMT

It's been renamed to Output.ItemType; you can set it to ItemType.EmbeddedResource.