PDSA Property Builder

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Barnaby Fitzgerald
6 years ago
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1 PDSA Property Builder Creating properties for a class involves creating both a private variable and then the corresponding property get/set statements. This process can be made much easier by using the PDSA Property Builder. Using this easy-to-use utility will make your creation of properties quick and simple. Figure 1 and Figure 2 are examples of what this utility looks like using either C# and VB.NET. This utility can be configured to create properties the way you want them to look by built-in options right on the screen, and through XML files.

2 PDSA Property Builder Figure 1. PDSA Property Builder using C# 2 PDSA Property Builder

PDSA Property Builder Utility Figure 2. PDSA Property Builder using VB.NET Field/Button Language Property Name(s) Scope.NET Data Type Description Select either VB.

3 PDSA Property Builder Utility Figure 2. PDSA Property Builder using VB.NET Field/Button Language Property Name(s) Scope.NET Data Type Description Select either VB.NET or C# from this drop down depending on the language in which you wish to generate properties. Type in a single public property name, or a comma-delimited list of properties, or a carriage return, line feed delimited list of properties. Select the scope for all the property names in the Property Name(s) field. Select the data type for all of the property names in the Property Name(s) field. After typing in all the property names for a specific Data Type, you can then change the Data Type and type in new property names in the Property PDSA Property Builder 3

4 PDSA Property Builder Custom Data Type Shared/static Read Only? Use Initializer Use Hungarian Create [Button] Clear [Button] Copy All [Button] Copy Private [Button] Copy Public [Button] Private Variables Name(s) field and press Create. The new properties will be added to the existing ones you generated before. Be careful not to press the Clear button or you will lose the old property names you generated. If you need to generate a property that is of a custom type (not a.net data type), click on the radio button Custom Data Type and a text field will be enabled allowing you to type in the name of the custom data type. If you want your properties to be have the access modifier of Shared or static, check this check box. If you wish to make your properties read-only, then check this check box. If you wish to initialize your private variables with the appropriate initializer for the data type check this check box. The initializers can be found in the XML file in the folder where this utility is installed. These XML files will be discussed later in this document. If you wish to have a hungarian notation prefix added to the private variable, check this check box. The Hungarian prefix can be found in the XML file in the folder where this utility is installed. These XML files will be discussed later in this document. Click on this button to generate the private variables and the public properties for the property names in the Property Name(s) field. Click on this button to clear the private variable and public variable text boxes. CAREFUL! There is no Undo in this tool. Click on this button to copy both the private variables and the public variables to the Clipboard. Click on this button to copy the private variables to the Clipboard. Click on this button to copy the public variables to the Clipboard. The generated private variables. Public The generated public properties. Properties Table 1. How to fill out the fields on this form. Configuration File In the installation folder where you install this utility is a.config file named PDSAPropertyBuilder.exe.config. In this config file you will find many settings. It is imperative that you not interfere with the settings in here in anyway. If you modify the wrong thing, it could cause the utility to break. After each time you generate, the information like Use Initializer and Use Hungarian is automatically stored into this.config file so the next time you run this utility that information will be preserved. 4 PDSA Property Builder

5 PDSA Property Builder Utility Any of the other default settings you can simply edit the configuration file manually. Below is a list of the various settings in the.config file and what each one does. Attribute Description DefaultLanguage DefaultPrefixVB DefaultPrefixCS DefaultDataTypeVB DefaultDataTypeCS DefaultScopeVB DefaultScopeCS IncludeInitializer UseHungarian DataTypesFileNameVB DataTypesFileNameCS Table 2. Configuration File Value Set this value to either VB.NET or C#. The value used will determine the default position of the Language combo box. What prefix to add to each VB.NET private variable generated. What prefix to add to each C# private variable generated. Set to a valid VB.NET data type to have this utility default the.net Data Type combo box to that value. Set to a valid C# data type to have this utility default the.net Data Type combo box to that value. Set to a valid VB.NET access modifier to have this utility default the Scope combo box to that value. Set to a valid C# access modifier to have this utility default the Scope combo box to that value. Set to True to default the Use Initializer? check box to a checked value. Set to False otherwise. Set to True to default the Use Hungarian? check box to a checked value. Set to False otherwise. The relative path and file name to the location of the XML file that holds all the data types for VB.NET. The default is XML\DataTypesVB.xml. The relative path and file name to the location of the XML file that holds all the data types for C#. The default is XML\DataTypesCS.xml. XML Files for Data Types In Listing 1 you can see the XML file that is used in the generation of the properties. You can configure each data type with a specified prefix and a default initializer if you want. For example, if you do not wish to have any prefixes before your private variable names, simply create a null node for the <Prefix> element. PDSA Property Builder 5

6 PDSA Property Builder <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <DataTypes> <Name>Object</Name> <Prefix>o</Prefix> <Initializer>Nothing</Initializer> <Name>Boolean</Name> <Prefix>bool</Prefix> <Initializer>False</Initializer> <Name>Char</Name> <Prefix>chr</Prefix> <Name>String</Name> <Prefix>str</Prefix> <Initializer>String.Empty</Initializer> </DataTypes> Listing 1. VB.NET Data Types XML File <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <DataTypes> <Name>object</Name> <Prefix>o</Prefix> <Initializer>null</Initializer> <Name>bool</Name> <Prefix>bln</Prefix> <Initializer>false</Initializer> <Name>char</Name> <Prefix>chr</Prefix> <Name>string</Name> <Prefix>str</Prefix> <Initializer>string.Empty</Initializer> </DataTypes> Listing 2. C# Data Types XML File 6 PDSA Property Builder

7 Tech Support PDSA Property Builder Utility As this is a very low cost utility, we do not accept phone calls related to the usage of this product. However, you may us at support@pdsa.com. We provide support only to licensed customers for the first 90 days of the usage of this product. We also welcome any feedback, or comments related to the improvement of this product. PDSA Property Builder 7

8 PDSA Property Builder Summary We hope you get a lot of use out of this utility. We use this utility quite often to generate properties for our classes. We are sure you will find it just as useful. 8 PDSA Property Builder

PDSA XML Builder Utility

PDSA XML Builder Utility This utility is handy for building XML files or XSD Schema files from tables, stored procedures that return result sets, or views in your database. We use this utility to generate