Using the CodeDOM
Pages: 1, 2, 3

Displaying the Generated Code

For demonstration purposes, we will use a simple .aspx file with four labels, one for each of the languages being produced.

<table width="800" border="1">
  <tr>
    <th>VB.NET Code</th>
  </tr>
  <tr >
    <td>
      <asp:Label ID="vbCode" Runat="server" CssClass="code">
	  </asp:Label>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>
      C# Code</th></tr>
  <tr>
    <td><asp:Label ID="csharpcode" Runat="server" CssClass="code">
	</asp:Label></td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>J# Code</th></tr>
  <tr >
    <td>
      <asp:Label ID="JSharpCode" Runat="server" CssClass="code">
	  </asp:Label>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <th>JScript.NET</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td><asp:Label ID="JScriptCode" Runat="server" CssClass="code">
	</asp:Label></td>
  </tr>
</table>

In the code behind, we will instantiate an instance of the CodeDomProvider class that we created earlier and then set the value of the code properties to the Text properties of the corresponding labels on the .aspx page. To make the generated code look a little nicer on the web page, we will do some very simple formatting to replace new lines with an HTML line break, and little spaces with the HTML entity for a non breaking space.

private string FormatCode (string CodeToFormat)
{
  string FormattedCode = Regex.Replace (CodeToFormat, "\n", "<br>");
  FormattedCode = Regex.Replace (FormattedCode,  "  " , "&nbsp;");
  FormattedCode = Regex.Replace (FormattedCode, ",", ", ");
  return FormattedCode;
}

Now we simply assign the generated code to the corresponding Labels in the .asp page.

private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{

  HelloWorld.CodeDomProvider  codegen = new HelloWorld.CodeDomProvider ();
  vbCode.Text = FormatCode (codegen.VBCode);
  csharpcode.Text = FormatCode (codegen.CSharpCode);
  JScriptCode.Text = FormatCode (codegen.JScriptCode);
  JSharpCode.Text = FormatCode (codegen.JSharpCode);
  Page.EnableViewState = false;
}

The output should look similiar to this:

VB.NET Code

Imports System 
Imports System.Text 

Namespace HelloWorld 
   
  Public Class Hello_World 
     
    Public Shared Sub Main() 
      Dim sbMessage As System.Text.StringBuilder = _
                         New System.Text.StringBuilder 
      Dim Characters() As Char = New Char() {_
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(72),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(69),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(76),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(76),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(79),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(32),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(87),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(79),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(82),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(76),  _
           Microsoft.VisualBasic.ChrW(68)} 
      Dim intCharacterIndex As Integer = 0 
      Do While intCharacterIndex < Characters.Length 
        sbMessage.Append(Characters(intCharacterIndex)) 
        intCharacterIndex = intCharacterIndex + 1 
      Loop 
      Console.WriteLine (sbMessage.ToString()) 
    End Sub 
  End Class 
End Namespace 

C# Code

namespace  HelloWorld 
{ 
    using  System; 
    using  System.Text; 
    
    
    public  class  Hello_World 
    { 
        
        public  static  void  Main() 
        { 
            System.Text.StringBuilder  sbMessage  =  new  
			     System.Text.StringBuilder(); 
            char[]  Characters  =  new  char[]  { 
                    'H', 
                    'E', 
                    'L', 
                    'L', 
                    'O', 
                    '  ', 
                    'W', 
                    'O', 
                    'R', 
                    'L', 
                    'D'}; 
            for  (int  intCharacterIndex  =  0;   
			      intCharacterIndex  <  Characters.Length;
                  intCharacterIndex  =  intCharacterIndex  +  1) 
            { 
                sbMessage.Append(Characters[intCharacterIndex]); 
            } 
            Console.WriteLine  (sbMessage.ToString()); 
        } 
    } 
} 

J# Code

package  HelloWorld; 
import  System.*; 
import  System.Text.*; 


public  class  Hello_World 
{ 
    
    public  static  void  main(String[]  args) 
    { 
        System.Text.StringBuilder  sbMessage  =  new  
		      System.Text.StringBuilder(); 
        char[]  Characters  =  new  char[] 
        { 
                'H', 
                'E', 
                'L', 
                'L', 
                'O', 
                '  ', 
                'W', 
                'O', 
                'R', 
                'L', 
                'D'} 
        ; 
        for  (int  intCharacterIndex  =  0;   
		      intCharacterIndex  <  Characters.Length;
              intCharacterIndex  =  intCharacterIndex  +  1) 
        { 
            sbMessage.Append(Characters[intCharacterIndex]); 
        } 
        Console.WriteLine  (sbMessage.ToString()); 
    } 
} 

JScript.NET Code

//@cc_on 
//@set @debug(off) 

import System; 
import System.Text; 

package HelloWorld 
{ 
   
  public class Hello_World 
  { 
     
    public static function Main() 
    { 
      var sbMessage : System.Text.StringBuilder = 
	        new System.Text.StringBuilder(); 
      var Characters : char[] = 
	        ['H', 'E', 'L', 'L', 'O', ' ', 'W', 'O', 'R', 'L', 'D']; 
      for (var intCharacterIndex : int = 0; 
      ; intCharacterIndex < Characters.Length; 
	  intCharacterIndex = intCharacterIndex + 1) 
      { 
        sbMessage.Append(Characters[intCharacterIndex]); 
      } 
      Console.WriteLine (sbMessage.ToString()); 
    } 
  } 
} 
HelloWorld.Hello_World.Main(); 

Conclusion

The CodeDom drives home the point that in .NET, the language is not nearly as important as the framework. This article demonstrated how to use some of the more common objects on the CodeDom that will probably be used in nearly every application of the CodeDom. The possibilities for structured code generation is really limited only by your imagination. I look forward to hearing some of the ways you are using the CodeDom.

Nick Harrison UNIX-programmer-turned-.NET-advocate currently working in Charlotte, North Carolina using .NET to solve interesting problems in the mortgage industry.

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