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ActionContainer: a Dynamic C# Service Agent

ActionContainer is an implementation of the Service Agent pattern in written in C#. It takes advantage of the C# 4.0 dynamic feature to eliminate cluttering your code with empty message classes and also manipulate calls at runtime.

Usage

Usage of ActionContainer is straight forward. Start by creating a class that implements the empty IActionProvider interface with public methods.

public class SimpleProvider : IActionProvider
{
  public void SayHello(string name)
  {
    Console.WriteLine("Hello, {0}", name);
  }

  public string GeneratePassword()
  {
    return "RaNdOmPaSsWoRd";
  }
}

Inject an instance of the ServiceAgent class, and make calls to the registered methods through the ServiceAgent object.

public class Needy : IDependOnSomething
{
    public dynamic ServiceAgent { get; set; }

    public void DoSomething()
    {
        ServiceAgent.SayHello("Buddy");
        string password = ServiceAgent.GeneratePassword();
    }
}

Calling SayHello with a string, will look up a registered method with the name SayHello, takes a string argument, and has a void return type. Same behavior goes for GeneratePassword, except it returns a string.

Looking up methods by name and parameters doesn’t require creating a class (think SayHelloRequest) for each registered action.

The ServiceAgent is also return type aware. In the call string password = ServiceAgent.GeneratePassword();, a search is done for the GeneratePassword that returns string. In this case, the SimpleProvider has the only registered GeneratePassword. Lets say we added another provider, the NumericProvider as follows:

public class NumericProvider: IActionProvider
{
  public int GeneratePassword()
  {
    return 42;
  }
}

Now calls to ServiceAgent.GeneratePassword(); can handle both int and string return types with no special PasswordResponse or NumericPasswordResponse wrapper classes.

string strpwd = ServiceAgent.GeneratePassword(); //returns "RaNdOmPaSsWoRd"
int numpwd = ServiceAgent.GeneratePassword(); //returns 42

Additional Behavior

The default method lookup ability of ActionContainer is just that: the default. ActionContainer provides a hook into its resolving process simply by creating implementations of the IActionListener interface.

public interface IActionListener
{
  bool CanHandle(ActionCallInfo callInfo);
  bool Handle(ActionListenerContext context);
}

The CanHandle method returns true if it has an opinion on the return value of a call. If CanHandle is true, Handle allows the object to manipulate the return value a value.

ActionCallInfo includes the method name, named parameters, unnamed parameters, and expected return type.

Using this information you could add helpful hooks such as a LogListener.

public class LogListener : IActionListener
{
  public bool CanHandle(ActionCallInfo callInfo)
  {
    var arg = callInfo
      .NamedArguments
      .FirstOrDefault(
          x => x.Item1.Equals("log", StringComparison.OrdinalIgnoreCase)
      );
    if (arg == null || !(arg.Item2 is bool) || !(bool)arg.Item2)
      return false;
    var unnamed = callInfo.UnnamedArguments;
    Console.Write("Calling {0}({1}) - Args: ", callInfo.MethodName, callInfo.ReturnType);
    for (int i = 0; i < unnamed.Count; i++)
    {
      var val = unnamed[i];
      Console.Write("input{0}= {1} ", i, val);
    }
    Console.WriteLine();
    return false;

  }

  public bool Handle(ActionListenerContext context)
  {
    return false;
  }
}

The LogListener will watch for an argument named log with the value of true. It will then write to the console the name of the call, return type, and arguments. To put it to use, just use the ServiceAgent as follows:

ServiceAgent.SayHello("Buddy", log: true);
//Output:
//Calling SayHello() - Args: input0= Buddy
//Hello, Buddy

Because the ServiceAgent is a dynamic object, any number of named arguments can be passed to its method calls.

Another possible hook would be a StringTrimListener. Any arguments that are strings can be trimmed before getting passed to the handling method.

public class StringTrimListener : IActionListener
{
  public bool CanHandle(ActionCallInfo callInfo)
  {
    var unnamed = callInfo.UnnamedArguments;
    for (int i =0; i < unnamed.Count; i++)
    {
      var val = unnamed[i] as string;
      if (val != null)
        unnamed[i] = val.Trim();
    }
    return false;
  }

  public bool Handle(ActionListenerContext context)
  {
    return false;
  }
}

No change in code is needed to have calls to the ServiceAgent start using the StringTrimListener. Just make a call on something with a string with hanging spaces.

ServiceAgent.SayHello("       Friend     ", log: true);
//Output:
//Hello, Friend

Things To Keep In Mind

ActionContainer has some requirements that you must keep in mind while using it. Most deal with determining types.

First, when doing variable assignment you must explicitly provide the type when returning values. Using var will result in unfriendly behavior.

var result = ServiceAgent.GeneratePassword(); //BAD!

Second, passing null values as parameters limits lookup. This has to do with null not carrying any type information other than object.

string name = null;
ServiceAgent.SayHello(name); //Less than favorable

Finally, ActionContainer is slow (~10x) compared to direct method calls. Using it in a long running loop will have noticeable performance hits. However, in response to user actions, incoming web request, etc, the difference is negligible.

Getting ActionContainer

It’s on Github. Go and grab it with Git.

$ git clone git://github.com/statianzo/ActionContainer.git

13 Aug 2010

ActionContainer: a Dynamic C# Service Agent

Usage

Additional Behavior

Things To Keep In Mind

Getting ActionContainer

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