Friday, October 2, 2015

Convert C# Object into JSON and vice versa using Jil

I have also written couple of posts about converting C# object into JSON and vice versa. Following is a list of post for the same.

Converting a C# Object into JSON string
How to convert C# object into JSON string with JSON.NET

In this blog post we will learn about how we can convert C# object into JSON with Jil- Fast .NET JSON (De)Serializer, Built On Sigil an open source library by stack exchange team.

What is Jil:


Jil is a open source (De) Serializer library written by Kevin Montrose and stack exchange team. It is built on Sigil- with a number of crazy optimization tricks.Sigil is also a custom fast validation helper for .NET CIL Generation. Jil is one of fastest Serializer and deserializer library. It is also open source. You can find more information about at following link.

https://github.com/kevin-montrose/Jil

Example:

So let's create example which demonstrate both Serializing and Deserializing object. So first we will create JSON string from C# object via serializing with Jil and then we again deserialize that string to C# object. I'm going to create a console application for this.

jil-jason-converter

After creating a application first thing we have to do is to add Nuget package from JIl via following command.

nuget-package-jil-json-serializer

I'm going to use a Employee class for this example which have four properties Employee Id, First Name, Last Name and Designation.
namespace CsharpJSON
{
    public class Employee
    {
        public int EmployeeId { get; set; }
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }
        public string Designation { get; set; }
    }
}
Then I have created a function Get Employee function to initialize Employee class with some data.
private static Employee GetEmployee()
{
    var employee = new Employee
    {
        EmployeeId = 1,
        FirstName = "Jalpesh",
        LastName = "Vadgama",
        Designation = "Technial Architect"
    };
    return employee;
}
Now it's time to serialize that employee class into JSON string so I have created  Serialize Employee function.
private static string SerializeEmployee(Employee employee)
{
    using (var output = new StringWriter())
    {
        JSON.Serialize(
           employee,
            output
        );
        return output.ToString();
    }
}
Here you can see I have use JSON.Serialize function which serialize C# object into string writer. Same way I have created Deserialize Employee function to deserialize JSON string created by previous function.
private static Employee DeserializeEmployee(string employeeString)
{
    return JSON.Deserialize<Employee>(employeeString);
}

Here you can see I have used  JSON. Deserialize function to convert JSON string into C# object. Finally I have called this function in my console application Main method and print it with Console.Writeline method.
static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var employee = GetEmployee();
    string employeeSerializedString = SerializeEmployee(employee);

    Console.WriteLine("Serialize Employee");
    Console.WriteLine(employeeSerializedString);

    Console.WriteLine("\n\nDeserializing Employee");
    var employeeDeserialized = DeserializeEmployee(employeeSerializedString);

    Console.WriteLine(employeeDeserialized.EmployeeId);
    Console.WriteLine(employeeDeserialized.FirstName);
    Console.WriteLine(employeeDeserialized.LastName);
    Console.WriteLine(employeeDeserialized.Designation);

    Console.ReadKey();
}

Now when you run application it will generate output like following.

json-csharp-object


You can find complete source code of this application at following location on GitHub- https://github.com/dotnetjalps/CsharpJsonJil

Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more!
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A Better Solution to create PDF with Rotativa and ASP.NET MVC

In most of the line of business application we need some kind of reports. Now days we need those reports as PDF format as it is the most convenient way of storing documents. I have written a post about creating a PDF in ASP.NET MVC with Razor PDF and it is one of the top visited page on my blog.

Creating PDF with ASP.NET MVC and RazorPDF

But now I have found a better way to create a PDF with ASP.NET MVC so I thought it will be a good idea to write a blog post about it. So in this blog post we are going to learn about creating PDF with ASP.NET MVC with the use of Rotativa as open source framework for creating PDF with ASP.NET MVC.

What is Rotativa:


It is a framework created by Giorgio Bozio with the purpose of creating PDF in ASP.NET MVC extremely easy way. It is based on wkhtmltopdf tool to create PDF from html content rendered on browser. It uses the web kit engine which is used by Safari and Chrome browser to render html. And support most of HTML tags and styles. It is a open source command line tools so Giogio has created a nuget package to use this tool as PDF creator. You can find more information about Rotativa from the following links.

http://letsfollowtheyellowbrickroad.blogspot.it/
http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/335595/Rotativa-how-to-print-PDF-in-Asp-Net-MVC

You can find source code of rotativa-

https://github.com/webgio/Rotativa

Now let's create example to demonstrate the power of Rotativa with ASP.NET MVC

Creating PDF with ASP.NET MVC and Rotativa:


So to create example, I have created a ASP.NET MVC application.

asp-net-mvc-pdf-application

The first thing we need to do is to add Rotativa Nuget Package in our application.

nuget-package-for-rotativ-asp-net-pdf
Here is the model class I have used to demonstrate power or Rotativa.
namespace MvcPdf.Models
{
    public class Customer
    {
        public int CustomerId { get; set; }
        public string FirstName { get; set; }
        public string LastName { get; set; }
        public string ProfileImage { get; set; }
    }
}
In this example, we are not going to use any database so we are going to hardcode data in customer. so We have done is hardcode list of customer in controller and returning it to a view.
using MvcPdf.Models;
using Rotativa;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Web.Mvc;

namespace MvcPdf.Controllers
{
    public class CustomerController : Controller
    {
        private List<Customer> _customers;

        public CustomerController()
        {
            var imagePath = "profile.jpg";
            _customers = new List<Customer>()
            {
                new Customer {CustomerId = 1, FirstName = "Jalpesh",
                               LastName = "Vadgama", ProfileImage = imagePath},
                new Customer {CustomerId = 1, FirstName = "Vishal", 
                               LastName = "Vadgama", ProfileImage = imagePath}
            };
        }

        // GET: Customer
        [HttpGet]
        public ActionResult Index()
        {
            return View(_customers);

        }
    }
}
And in view we has displayed this list as table like following.
@model List<MvcPdf.Models.Customer>

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "PDF Title";
  
}

<h2>Convert to  PDF</h2>

<table class="table">
    <tr>
        <td class="alert-success">First Name</td>
        <td class="alert-info">Last name</td>
        <td style="background-color: yellow;">Profile Image</td>
    </tr>
    @foreach (var item in Model)
    {
        <tr>
            <td>@item.FirstName</td>

            <td>@item.LastName</td>
            <td><img src="@Url.Content("~/content/" + Path.GetFileName(item.ProfileImage))" alt="" width="100" height="100" /></td>
        </tr>
    }

</table>    
          
@Html.ActionLink("Print", "Print", "Customer")
If you see in above code, I have used a image to display profile pic. I have also used different styles for td element in table to display power of Rotativa. Even I have used hardcoded style directly.  At bottom I have created  Html Action link to print this view as PDF and following is a code the printing this view as PDF in Action Result.
public ActionResult Print()
{
    return new ActionAsPdf("Index", _customers);
}
And when we run this application it looks like following.

browser-demo-pdf

Now when you click on Print it will create a PDF like following.

pdf-created-with-rotativa-with-browser

This was pretty basic demo but there are lots of options also available with Rotativa you can find that options in documentation on Github as well. I have shared same link above.
You can find source code of this sample application on github at following location - https://github.com/dotnetjalps/AspNetMvcPdfRotativa
Hope you like it. Stay tuned for more!!
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My Interview on Geek.Fest - What's new in C# 6

I have been featured on Geek.Fest a you channel by Fanie Reynders. I have lots of fun while talking about latest C# features. We had interesting discussion and demo of latest c# features. Following is a video on the you tube.



You can find blog from Fanie at following location.
http://reynders.co/2015/10/01/geekfest-9-whats-new-in-csharp-6/

Following is the sample code and demo for the discussion.
https://github.com/dotnetjalps/LatestCSharpFeatures

Thank you very much Fanie Reynders and Geek.Fest for featuring me.
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