Generating classes for Xperience objects

This page describes how to use code generators to prepare wrapper classes for working with specific object types (Page types, Custom tables and Forms).

Code generators are available for the following objects, in their respective applications:

• Page types – allow you to generate a class with the page type’s fields as properties.

  • Generate code for individual page types on the Code tab of the specific types.

  • Generate code for all page types on the Code tab of the Page types application.

    Product page types

    Code generators also work for product page types. However, unlike page types, which inherit from the TreeNode class, product page types inherit from the SKUTreeNode class.

• Custom tables – allow you to generate a class with the custom table’s fields as properties.
  • Generate code for individual custom tables on the Code tab of the given custom table’s editing interface.
• Forms – allow you to generate a class with the form’s fields as properties.
  • Generate code for individual forms on the Code tab of the given form’s editing interface.

Code generators allow you to create classes for working with specific objects types (Page types, Custom tables, Forms) in the API.

Working with page type code generators

The page type code generators allow you to generate classes holding the properties of your custom page types. The generated properties represent the page type fields.

Generating code for page types

1. Choose whether you want to generate code for a single or all site page types.

   • For a single page type:
     1. In the Page types application, edit () a page type.
     2. Navigate to the Code tab.
   • For all site page types:
     1. In the Page types application, navigate to the Code tab.
     2. Select a Site.
     3. (Optional) If you want to generate code for page types without any custom fields, enable the Include page types without fields check box.

2. (Optional) Select a different default folder to place the code files in.

3. Click Save code.

   Note: The generated class names are not guaranteed to be unique. The system can in certain cases generate multiple classes with the same name. If this occurs, you need to rename the classes manually.

The system generates the page type classes in the specified folder. You can find examples of working with the generated classes on:

• Displaying page content – learn how to retrieve pages, filter based on page taxonomy (content tree structure, categories, tags), and how to access individual fields of the retrieved pages.
• Retrieving content – learn how to retrieve and filter user form submissions, custom table data, and objects associated with custom modules.

Including the generated page type wrapper classes in your live site project

To use the generated code on the live site, you need to copy the files to the project folder of your live site (MVC) application.

By default, the generated code files are stored in the ~/Old_App_Code/CMSClasses folder of your administration project.

1. In your live site project, create a new Generated folder under your Models folder, e.g., C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Xperience13\MySite\Models\Generated.
2. Copy the classes that represent your page types to the Generated folder.
3. Click the Show all files button to see the files you have copied in the solution.
4. Select the Models/Generated folder, right-click to open the context menu, and select Include In Project.

Customizing generated classes

In most scenarios, we do not recommended directly modifying the generated classes.

The classes are generated as partial classes. This means that you can extend them in a separate code file. Using this approach, you avoid the need to merge custom changes made to the generated code every time the class is generated again after the object’s properties are changed.

Example of customizing generated classes

namespace CMS.DocumentEngine.Types.Custom
{
    public partial class Article : TreeNode
    {
        ...

        /// <summary>
        /// Article name.
        /// </summary>
        [DatabaseField]
        public string ArticleTitle
        {
            get
            {
                return ValidationHelper.GetString(GetValue("ArticleTitle"), "");
            }
            set
            {
                SetValue("ArticleTitle", value);
            }
        }
        ...
    }
}

namespace CMS.DocumentEngine.Types.Custom
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Custom article page type class.
    /// </summary>
    public partial class Article : TreeNode
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Loads sample data into this object.
        /// </summary>
        public void LoadSampleData()
        {
            ArticleTitle = "Sample article title";
            ArticleSummary = "Sample article summary";
            ArticleText = "Sample article text";
        }
    }
}

Using nullable properties for non-required fields

Page type, custom table or form fields whose Required setting is disabled may have null values in the database. However, the code generators create properties with non-nullable types for such fields. Instead, a default value is typically loaded in cases where the value is null, for example 0 for numeric types.

If you wish to have properties with Nullable types in the code representing your page, custom table or form items, you need to manually adjust the code after generating.

1. Change the type of the given properties to a nullable one (using the T? syntax) in the Properties region of the generated class.
2. Adjust the get property accessor for each property:
   • Remove the default ValidationHelper.Get call (GetInteger, GetBoolean, etc.), which replaces null with a default value.
   • Cast the result of the GetValue method to the appropriate nullable type.
3. Change the type of the matching properties within the nested *Fields class.

// Example of a nullable integer field
[DatabaseField]
public int? IntegerField
{
    get
    {
        // Adjusted loading of the value (without replacement of null with a default value)
        return GetValue("IntegerField") as int?;
    }
    set
    {
        SetValue("IntegerField", value);
    }
}

...

[RegisterAllProperties]
public partial class ItemFields : AbstractHierarchicalObject<ItemFields>
{

    ...

    // Adjusted nullable property within the nested *Fields class
    public int? IntegerField
    {
        get
        {
            return mInstance.IntegerField;
        }
        set
        {
            mInstance.IntegerField = value;
        }
    }

    ...