Hi all!
I am starting a new project that will require XML web services. I am using the adapter scenario and am serializing/deserializing to/from XmlNode objects to get the data across the wire. Here's some example code:
[WebMethod]
public XmlNode GetClientDetails(int clientId)
{
DataAccessAdapter da = new DataAccessAdapter();
ClientEntity client = new ClientEntity(clientId);
da.FetchEntity(client);
// Get the client's classes
da.FetchEntityCollection(client.Class, client.GetRelationInfoClass());
return LLBLGenSupport.EntityToXmlNode(client);
}
[WebMethod]
public XmlNode SaveClient(XmlNode entity)
{
ClientEntity client = new ClientEntity();
client.ReadXml(entity);
DataAccessAdapter da = new DataAccessAdapter();
da.SaveEntity(client);
return LLBLGenSupport.EntityToXmlNode(client);
}
The LLBLGenSupport class is a simple helper class that I have running on both the web service and a test client app:
public class LLBLGenSupport
{
/// <summary>
/// Converts the given Entity object into an XmlNode object for transport over a web method
/// </summary>
/// <param name="entity"></param>
/// <returns></returns>
public static XmlNode EntityToXmlNode(EntityBase2 entity)
{
XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
XmlNode node;
entity.WriteXml(doc, out node);
return node;
}
}
All of this code works great. My question is this: is there any way that I can write a "Generic" Save method that will take in any kind of entity and save it properly? The EntityBase2 class is abstract, so I can't instatiate it to be able to execute the ReadXml method for it. I tried writing a "GenericEntity" class that inherits from EntityBase2, but I didn't have much luck. What would be perfect would be a factory method that takes an XmlNode as input and returns an EntityBase2 object that I can then pass to the SaveEntity method (or cast it to the type I need, or whatever).
Is there any method that would allow me to do that?
Thanks!
