Chris Melinn

Agenda

This presentation will provide a

short overview of T4. We will learn

the basics of creating a template and

then see a few examples of how T4 is

used by others.

The Basics

In the Wild

More Information

What is T4?

T4 =

Text

Template

Transformation

Toolkit

Code Generation

Built by Microsoft

Included in Visual Studio

What is T4?

Generates any textual format

Common examples:

• Code (C#, VB, etc)

• SQL

• XML

Template Based

Similar syntax to ASP

Very Extensible

But…

Editing T4 sucks *

* with the default Visual Studio setup

No Syntax Highlighting

No Intellisense

Looks like Notepad…

The DefaultVisual Studio Editor

Fortunately, there is a solution…

Free Visual T4 Editor

Community Edition

from Clarius Consulting

Much better experience

Syntax Highlighting

Intellisense in Pro Edition

The Visual T4 Editor (inside Visual Studio)

Creating Templates

How it works

T4 engine performs two steps to generate output from a template:

Source: Oleg Sych http://www.olegsych.com/

Examples of T4 in the wild

“If you’re going to do something twice or more, manually, in your company, generate it.”

~ Scott Hanselman

T4 can be used to generate…

Code Templates

(MVC Add View)

Database to Code

Code to Database

Configuration Files

Domain-Specific Languages

(DSL Toolkit)

Removing

Magic Strings

(T4MVC)

Add logic to CSS

(T4CSS)

ASP.NET MVC CodeTemplates

T4CSS

For more information…

Resources

Oleg Sych’s blog is the best collection of T4 resources I have found anywhere

http://www.olegsych.com/

His CodePlex project, T4 Toolbox, contains several ready-to-use code generation templates and other supporting extensions.

http://www.codeplex.com/t4toolbox

Editing Tools

Visual T4 Editor from Clarius Consulting

http://www.visualt4.com/

Tangible T4 Editor by Tangible Engineering

http://t4-editor.tangible-engineering.com/T4-Editor-Visual-T4-Editing.html

Other Examples of T4

T4CSS

http://haacked.com/archive/2009/12/02/t4-template-for-less-css.aspx

T4MVC: Creates strongly typed helpers to eliminate your “magic strings”

http://aspnet.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=T4MVC

Generate WPF and Silverlight Dependency Properties using T4

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/WPF/DependencyPropertyCodeGen.aspx

Contact Me

Blog: http://chrismelinn.wordpress.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ChrisMelinn