ElasticObject

ElasticObject is a multi level dynamic object implementation using .NET 4.0 dynamic features, for fluent access of data types like XML.

For example, consider the XML

<entry name="user"/>

One possible use of ElasticObject is, you can access the same using fluent dynamic wrappers, like

var n=entry.name;

You can also use it like ExpandoObject, with multi level property support. To start with, here are few scenarios you can use ElasticObject

• An easier, fluid way to work with data formats – like XML and JSON. Presently, we’ve some support for XML.
• Cleaner code though it is duck typed
• A hierarchical way to maintain loosely typed data.

###How to use ElasticObject###

You can create dynamic objects with multiple levels of properties. ElasticObject has got its own conventions ;)

    dynamic CreateStoreObject()
        {
            dynamic store = new ElasticObject("Store");
            store.Name = "Acme Store";
            store.Location.Address = "West Avenue, Heaven Street Road, LA";
            store.Products.Count = 2;

            store.Owner.FirstName = "Jack";
            store.Owner.SecondName = "Jack";

            //try to set the internal content for an element
            store.Owner <<= "this is some internal content for owner";

            //Add a new product
            var p1 = store.Products.Product();
            p1.Name = "Acme Floor Cleaner";
            p1.Price = 20;

            //Add another product
            var p2 = store.Products.Product();
            p2.Name = "Acme Bun";
            p2.Price = 22;

            return store;

        }

Now, you can convert this to XML quite easily, using the > operator. You can convert the XML back to elasticobject as well. See below.

            var store = CreateStoreObject();
            XElement el = store > FormatType.Xml;
            dynamic storeClone = el.ToElastic();
            XElement elCopy = storeClone > FormatType.Xml;
            Assert.AreEqual(el.ToString(), elCopy.ToString());

See the unit tests for more examples.

Using ElasticObject for traversing XML

It is pretty easy to use ElasticObject to traverse XML. For example, here is a Console client that gets my Twitter timeline as XML, and print some properties.

Note the ToElastic extension method available for converting XElements to an ElasticObject

class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var cl=new WebClient();
            Console.WriteLine("Reading public time line");
            using (var r = new StreamReader
                (cl.OpenRead(@"http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/amazedsaint.xml")))
            {
                var data = r.ReadToEnd();
                IterateTweets(data);
            }
            Console.ReadLine();

        }

        static void IterateTweets(string data)
        {
            dynamic root = XElement.Parse(data).ToElastic();
            foreach (var s in root["status"])
            {
                Console.WriteLine(~s.user.screen_name + " - " + ~s.text);
                Console.WriteLine();
            }
        }
    }
	

Using ElasticObject for XML driven T4 Code generation in Visual Studio

You can use ElasticObject to generate code using T4 from simple XML files. To install AmazedSaint.ElasticObject package from nuget, run the following command in the Package Manager Console

Install-Package AmazedSaint.ElasticObject

Or you can install this via the Nuget Package manager, it is your choice. See the example once you install the package.

More

• [Introduction To ElasticObject] (http://www.amazedsaint.com/2010/02/introducing-elasticobject-for-net-40.html)
• [XML driven Code Generation using T4 and ElasticObject] (http://www.amazedsaint.com/2012/02/xml-driven-ct4-code-generation-with.html)