Generate code files for system objects

Certain types of objects in the system can contain custom fields that are used to model and structure the content stored within them. A typical example is a content type object with a title, article summary, and article text. Custom fields are assigned either via the field editor or the Form Builder editing interface and correspond to a single database column.

Since each object can contain a different set of custom fields, it’s impossible to provide strongly-typed access to individual fields via a shared general class. For this reason, accessing custom fields can be unwieldy, often needing additional code to be written. The process requires developers to:

• specify database column names to manipulate data from particular fields, and
• manually perform value type conversion and validation on the data as it gets retrieved from and stored to the database.

Therefore, to make working with such objects easier, the system allows you to generate object-specific code files. A code file contains properties that correspond to custom fields defined for the source object (e.g., title, article summary, article text for a content type). Each such property is assigned a data type and getter/setter logic suitable for manipulating the data of the underlying field. This allows you to work with the field’s data using the underlying C# data type without writing additional code. For more information about field data types, see Field data type management.

Code generation is available for the following objects:

• Reusable content types – generates a class with the reusable content type’s fields as properties. See Content item API to learn about available API that can be used with generated content type classes.
• Page content types – generates a class with the page content type’s fields as properties. See Content item API to learn about available API that can be used with generated page classes.
• Reusable field schemas – generates an interface that defines the corresponding schema’s fields as its properties.
• Forms – generates a class with the form’s fields as properties. See Content retrieval to learn about available API that can be used with generated form classes.
• Object types – generates classes that facilitate working with object types. See Database table API to learn about the architecture and available API of such objects.
  • Code generation for object types can be further configured in the administration, see Configure code generation for data classes.

Generate code files

The code generator is command line-based. Code files are generated via the dotnet run --kxp-codegen .NET CLI command. You can run the generator from a command line interface of your choice (cmd, PowerShell, Bash).

Run the command from the root directory of your Xperience project:

cd my/Xperience/app/root
dotnet run --no-build -- --kxp-codegen --type "ReusableContentTypes"

The code generator supports the following parameters. You can also view the supported parameters by running the generator with the --help option:

cd my/Xperience/app/root
dotnet run -- --kxp-codegen --type "ReusableContentTypes"

dotnet run -- --kxp-codegen --type "ReusableContentTypes" --include "MyProject.Article;Acme.*"

dotnet run -- --kxp-codegen --type "ReusableContentTypes" --exclude "MyProject.Article;Acme.*"

# Generates only *Info classes
dotnet run -- --kxp-codegen --type "Classes" --with-provider-class False

The system generates the code files in the specified location and folder structure.

Reusable field schema interfaces

Code files generated via ReusableContentTypes or PageContentTypes for content types that use at least one reusable field schema implement I<SchemaName>Fields interfaces. Each such interface corresponds to a schema assigned to the given content type. You must generate these interfaces separately using the ReusableFieldSchemas --type parameter. Make sure to place them under the same namespace as the content type classes that use them. The generator outputs uncompilable code otherwise.

For example, assume an Article page content type that uses the PageMetada and SEO reusable field schemas.

To generate the page content type, run:

dotnet run -- --kxp-codegen --type "PageContentTypes" --namespace "My.Project"

Which outputs:

namespace My.Project
{
    public partial class Article : IPageMetadata, ISEO, IWebPageFieldsSource
    {
        // Properties that represent the 'PageMetadata' and 'SEO' reusable schema fields

        // The SystemFields property

        // Properties that represent 'Article' content type fields
    }
}

To generate the corresponding reusable schema interfaces, run:

dotnet run -- --kxp-codegen --type "ReusableFieldSchemas" --namespace "My.Project"

Which outputs:

namespace My.Project
{
    public interface IPageMetadata
    {
        public const string REUSABLE_FIELD_SCHEMA_NAME = "PageMetadata";

        // Properties that represent 'PageMetadata' reusable schema fields
    }
}

namespace My.Project
{
    public interface ISEO
    {
        public const string REUSABLE_FIELD_SCHEMA_NAME = "SEO";

        // Properties that represent 'SEO' reusable schema fields
    }
}

Model mapping preferences

When mapping the results of database queries to generated model classes, the system by default uses the type of the generated interface when saturating properties that represent reusable field schemas. You can override this behavior and specify which model class a given content type referenced under a reusable field schema maps to using the MapContentTypeReferenceTo and MapReferenceTo attributes.

// Maps content types of type 'Blog.BLOG_CLASS_NAME' from the collection of items
// referenced by the 'IPageMetadata' schema to the 'Blog' model class.
[MapContentTypeReferenceTo(Blog.BLOG_CLASS_NAME, typeof(Blog))]

// Maps content types of type 'Article.ARTICLE_CLASS_NAME' from the collection of items
// referenced by the 'IPageMetadata' schema to the 'Article' model class.
[MapContentTypeReferenceTo(Article.ARTICLE_CLASS_NAME, typeof(Article))]

// All other content types map to the 'PageMetadata' model class
[MapReferenceTo(typeof(PageMetadata))]

// Property representing reusable field schema references
public IEnumerable<IPageMetadata> Pages { get; set; }

// A custom implementation of the 'IPageMetadata' interface containing 
// a subset of the schema's properties 
public class PageMetadata : IPageMetadata
{
    public string Title { get; set; }
}

When no mapping preferences are specified, the system defaults first to the type of the property representing the reusable schema (IPageMetadata in the example above) and finally to the type registered via RegisterContentTypeMappingAttribute.

IContentItemFieldsSource and IWebPageFieldsSource interfaces

Classes generated for reusable content types and web pages respectively implement the IContentItemFieldsSource and IWebPageFieldsSource interfaces. These interfaces are useful when accessing system properties across multiple content types, or when defining extension methods across all generated classes.

// Instances of services obtained via dependency injection
private readonly IContentQueryExecutor contentQueryExecutor;
private readonly IContentQueryResultMapper contentQueryResultMapper;

public async Task<IEnumerable<IContentItemFieldsSource>> FetchMultipleContentTypes()
{
    // Gets multiple content types in a single query
    var builder = new ContentItemQueryBuilder()
                            .ForContentTypes(query => 
                            {
                                query.OfContentType(Coffee.CONTENT_TYPE_NAME, Event.CONTENT_TYPE_NAME)
                            });

    // Uses 'IContentItemFieldsSource' as the common type
    return await contentQueryExecutor.GetMappedResult<IContentItemFieldsSource>(builder);
}

public static class WebPageFieldsSourceExtensionMethods
{
    public static object GetSystemProperties(this IWebPageFieldsSource source)
    {
        return new { Guid = source.SystemFields.ContentItemGUID, 
                     Id   = source.SystemFields.ContentItemID };
    }
}

Customize generated classes

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

The classes as 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

namespace DancingGoat
{
    // Partial class generated by the code generator for content type 'DancingGoat.Store'
    public partial class Store : IWebPageFieldsSource
    {
        ...

        /// <summary>
        /// Store name.
        /// </summary>
        public string StoreName { get; set; }

         /// <summary>
        /// Store location.
        /// </summary>
        public string StoreLocation { get; set; }

        ...
    }
}

namespace DancingGoat
{
    // Partial class extending the generated 'Store' class
    public partial class Store
    {
        public string StoreFullName { get => $"{StoreName}-{StoreLocation}" }
    }
}

Configure code generation for data classes

You can further configure code generation for object types under Modules → select a module → Classes → edit a class → Code.

Additionally, columns that can be used to uniquely identify individual records in the database (ID, Code name, GUID) have the Use hashtable option available. If the option is enabled, retrieved objects are cached under the corresponding identifier. For subsequent queries targeting previously retrieved records, the cached values are used, reducing database usage. However, note that enabling hashtable caching for data classes with a significant number of records that are often loaded by the system may result in a large increase in application memory usage. See Object type configuration.