Custom attribute ?

[Pete Kane]

Hello All, I have a method in my App class called GetText, this function
accepts a string as input param, and returns a corresponding string
value from a lookup table, the table has two fields, KeyName and
KeyValue, my concern is , as and when I add more methods and classes
that will utilise this function I have to remember to add records to the
the underlying lookup table on the "live" server

e.g.

string MethodOneInSomeClass()
{
return App.GetText("GetSiteName")
}

in this case I have to add

KeyName KeyValue
"GetSiteName" "London"

to the lookup table, I got bitten by this recently ( i.e. forgot to add
the record ) and am trying to think of a way to avoid doing so in the
future - one way I've thought might be ok, is, decorate all the methods
that use the function with a custom attribute, e.g.

[GetTextAttribute("GetSiteName")]
string MethodOneInSomeClass()
{
return App.GetText("GetSiteName")
}

and in the app use Reflection to list all attributes of type
"GetTextAttribute" that are not present in the lookup table. Does this
seem a reasonable approach ?

 

[Jeff Johnson]

But if you really want to use a custom attribute, I can't think of any
obvious, strong reason not to.

Perhaps I didn't get exactly what he was trying to do, but going the
attribute route sounded like a real Rube Goldberg solution to me.

 

[Jeff Johnson]

But if you really want to use a custom attribute, I can't think of any
obvious, strong reason not to.

Perhaps I didn't get exactly what he was trying to do, but going the
attribute route sounded like a real Rube Goldberg solution to me.

 

[Pete Kane]

[...]
[GetTextAttribute("GetSiteName")]
string MethodOneInSomeClass()
{
return App.GetText("GetSiteName")
}

and in the app use Reflection to list all attributes of type
"GetTextAttribute" that are not present in the lookup table. Does this
seem a reasonable approach ?

For some definitions of "reasonable", I suppose. I'm not really clear
on why simply testing the application isn't sufficient. Presumably if
the table doesn't have the necessary key and value, you'll get an error
at run-time. If you're worried about testing coverage, I would put more
effort into unit testing, which is going to be more generally useful
anyway.

But if you really want to use a custom attribute, I can't think of any
obvious, strong reason not to.

Pete

Thank you for introducing me to Rube Goldberg - I do unit testing
but on a different network and sometimes forget to add any new values to
the live environment - thanks for your comments

 

[Pete Kane]

[...]
[GetTextAttribute("GetSiteName")]
string MethodOneInSomeClass()
{
return App.GetText("GetSiteName")
}

and in the app use Reflection to list all attributes of type
"GetTextAttribute" that are not present in the lookup table. Does this
seem a reasonable approach ?

For some definitions of "reasonable", I suppose. I'm not really clear
on why simply testing the application isn't sufficient. Presumably if
the table doesn't have the necessary key and value, you'll get an error
at run-time. If you're worried about testing coverage, I would put more
effort into unit testing, which is going to be more generally useful
anyway.

But if you really want to use a custom attribute, I can't think of any
obvious, strong reason not to.

Pete

Thank you for introducing me to Rube Goldberg - I do unit testing
but on a different network and sometimes forget to add any new values to
the live environment - thanks for your comments

 

[J.B. Moreno]

[...]
[GetTextAttribute("GetSiteName")]
string MethodOneInSomeClass()
{
return App.GetText("GetSiteName")
}

and in the app use Reflection to list all attributes of type
"GetTextAttribute" that are not present in the lookup table. Does this
seem a reasonable approach ?

-snip-
Thank you for introducing me to Rube Goldberg - I do unit testing
but on a different network and sometimes forget to add any new values to
the live environment - thanks for your comments

Basically you're hard coding the values, and doing so in a rather
bizarre way. If hard coding is what you want to do, why not just do
so? Also, are you certain that you'll never want to delete existing
values?

 

[J.B. Moreno]

[...]
[GetTextAttribute("GetSiteName")]
string MethodOneInSomeClass()
{
return App.GetText("GetSiteName")
}

and in the app use Reflection to list all attributes of type
"GetTextAttribute" that are not present in the lookup table. Does this
seem a reasonable approach ?

-snip-
Thank you for introducing me to Rube Goldberg - I do unit testing
but on a different network and sometimes forget to add any new values to
the live environment - thanks for your comments

Basically you're hard coding the values, and doing so in a rather
bizarre way. If hard coding is what you want to do, why not just do
so? Also, are you certain that you'll never want to delete existing
values?