F# Unit Test Template for DLL built with Visual Studio 2010

I published the F# unit test template and a user reports they cannot run the Visual Studio 2010 DLL with this template on Visual Studio 2012. You need to do a bindingDirect in the App.config file.


        < bindingRedirect oldVersion="4.0.0.0" newVersion="4.3.0.0" />

You can find the full file content in a F# console application. The console application create the app.config by default. If this one still cannot solve your problem, you need create a runsetting file and force the legacy mode = true. Please remember to set the test run setting from Visual Studio menu: Test -> Test Settings -> Select Test Setting files... to use the runsetting you just created.

I have not found any drawback when using the Force Legacy mode. So please let me know if you found something.

More Options Added to F# Snippets

I added two options to the snippets.

• Use space to commit is determine if space key can be to insert the content. The current behavior is TRUE
  
  Here is a sample to help you understand what is going on.
  
  1. type "cl".
  2. if this value is TRUE, when you press space, "class" will generated. If this value is FALSE, the space will be inserted.

• Show Intellisense in session is to determine if another f# snippet message should be shown during the snippet session. The current behavior is TRUE.
  
  this one is tricky. Let us see this sample:
  
  1. type "cl"
  2. use tab to complete the "class"
  3. use tab to start the code snippet session
  4. type "cl", if the value is TRUE, the intellisense will show "class". If it is FALSE, nothing will show.
  
• The third one's name explains everything. If this option selected, only TAB is accepted as the way to insert code snippet, the ENTER key is disabled. The default value is NOT selected.

the F# built-in intellisense will always show. But you can use "ESC" to dismiss it and still keep the code snippet session active. The old behavior is when you use "ESC", the code snippet session is gone as well (bad!).

Please go to Setup instruction to download latest zip file to do a clean setup or go to VS Gallery to download latest package only (without index xml file)

Tweet to fsharp

F# Type Provider as wrapper class II

Thanks to the question from Steffen Forkmann ‏@sforkmann, I can make the F# type provider more useful.  If you have not read the previous post, you can go to here to read that post first. You do not have to put the sealed class in your type provider code. If you can modify the sealed class, it does not make sense to use type provider. This time, we try to reference to a DLL. The source is code is here, in which there are two solutions. One is the type provider project and the other one is the library project contains a seal class. The library will mimic the third party sealed class.

In the source code, the type provider project references to the library1.dll. Everything seems working correctly, until you try to execute the test code in the second Visual Studio,

type T = Samples.ShareInfo.TPTest.TPTestType
let t = T()
let s = t.F2(2)
printfn "AA"

you will get error:

 The type provider 'Samples.FSharp.ShareInfoProvider.CheckedRegexProvider' reported an error in the context of provided type 'Samples.ShareInfo.TPTest.TPTestType', member '.ctor'. The error: Could not load file or assembly 'Library1, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

I bet you must jaw-droppingly stare at the screen when you first see this error. Does Visual Studio hide some secrete from you? If you install this DLL into the GAC, everything should be fine. If you do not want to  pollute your GAC, the < visual Studio Installation folder > \Common7\IDE\PrivateAssemblies is the magic folder you can put your Library1.dll.

After the file is under that magic folder, you do not have to restart Visual Studio. Just hit F5 and everything should work. 

If you really want to use the type string as a parameter, there is a tutorial from MSDN. What you need to do is convert the incoming string to type by using Assembly.Load and find the type you want. Please note type provider does not accept System.Type as parameter. It can only take string.

Tweet to fsharp

F# Type Provider as wrapper class

I still remember those days when I have to change behavior from a sealed class. I have to use a wrapper class and rewrite each method in the sealed class. When I find out the type provider can inherit an non-object class (see this post), I decide to find a way to simplify this task on this Friday night. The source code is here.

The idea is simple, I need to do a wrapper class around the existing sealed class. In addition, logging function is executed before and after each method call. The equivalence C# code is like:

public sealed class A
{
    public void F1() { ... }
}

public class MyClass
{
    private A a = new A();
    public void F1() { a.F1(); }
}

The type provider generate methods with the same name as the base class method, take same parameter, pass the parameter to base class method, and return values from base method invoke. In addition to the base class invoke, logging methods are invoked before and after.

the base class definition is:

[< Sealed >]
type BaseType2() =  
     member this.F1(s) = printfn "%s" s
     member this.F2(i) = printfn "%d" i 

the code to invoke the type provider is:

#r @".\bin\Debug\ShareInfoSampleTypeProvider.dll"
type T = Samples.ShareInfo.TPTest.TPTestType
let t = T()
t.F1("hello")  //invoke F1 and also output logging info
t.F2(2)         //invoke F2 and also output logging info

Because we have the logging function defined as:

type InsertFunctions = class
    static member LogBeforeExecution(obj:BaseType2, methodName:string) = printfn "log before %A %A" obj methodName
    static member LogAfterExecution(obj:BaseType2, methodName:string) = printfn "log after %A %A" obj methodName
end

the final execution is:

log before Samples.FSharp.ShareInfoProvider.BaseType2 "F1"
hello
log after Samples.FSharp.ShareInfoProvider.BaseType2 "F1" 

log before Samples.FSharp.ShareInfoProvider.BaseType2 "F2"
2
log after Samples.FSharp.ShareInfoProvider.BaseType2 "F2"

If you understand the previous post, the only change for current version is how to use Quotation to invoke the code.

• The first barrier is to how to invoke a method.

the method call is Expr.Call, which takes three parameters if not a static method and will take only two parameters if it is a static method. If you are familiar about how to get quotations, you can refer to MSDN document. The parameter to the Expr.Call is created by using Expr.Value.

• The second one is how to invoke two or more statements

Invoking statements is handled by Expr.Sequential. The problem it only takes two elements, seems a problem when we want to invoke more than two statements. Actually this is not a problem at all. If the second parameter is a Expr.Sequential, you can have another space to hold your statement. The following code is the what is inside the InvokeCode.

let baseTExpression = <@@ (%%args.[0]:BaseType2) @@>
let mi = baseTy.GetMethod(methodName)
let logExpr = Expr.Call(typeof.GetMethod("LogBeforeExecution"), [ baseTExpression; Expr.Value(methodName) ])
let invokeExpr = Expr.Call(baseTExpression, mi, args.Tail)
let logAfterExpr = Expr.Call(typeof.GetMethod("LogAfterExecution"), [ baseTExpression; Expr.Value(methodName) ])
Expr.Sequential(logExpr, Expr.Sequential(invokeExpr, logAfterExpr) 

Hopefully this can inspire you to explore more about the F# type provider and apply it to your daily coding adventure. :-)

Tweet to fsharp

Snippet file updated

Thanks for the review and feedback, the snippet file is updated according to the feedback. We will keep updating these snippets. The snippet file will be updated on the blog.

currently the snippets are from two sources:

1. the snippets generate the basic F# structures, such as for, while, if, etc
2. convert C# snippets to F#.

We try to control the snippet with shortcuts minimum and meanwhile continue to contribute to the one without shortcut.

If you are using code snippets and have some suggestion on some new snippets you like or dislike.  Please let us know.

Tweet to fsharp

How to write your F# snippet

If you are going to write your own F# code snippet to work with the F# snippet add-on, it is pretty simple. The snippet file format is exactly like the C# snippet file except the language tag is "fsharp". Please note the F# snippet support "add reference". If you copy the existing C# snippet, be careful about the reference part. You do not want to insert a F# tuple and suddenly have Windows.Form.dll inserted into the reference. (I have to confess, I did this several times after copying C# ones. :-( )

This tag is also used to distinguish F# snippet and C# snippet when insert into the database.

Please feel free to setup your snippet database using the script.

Tweet to fsharp

F# snippet files v0.8 are here!

along with the published F# code snippet addon for Visual Studio 2012 RC, F# Shanghai team also provides a set of snippets. we have already moved them to open source project on codeplex.

• Andrew: Andrew Xiao ‏ @AndrewXue
• Zack: ZakaryZhou ‏ @ZakaryZhou
• Judith: Judith Wang ‏ @JudithWang1 

are contributors this package.

you need to copy them to the " C:\Users\ < user name > \Documents\Visual Studio 2012\Code Snippets\Visual F#\My Code Snippets" after you successfully install the snippet addon. Please also check your code snippet manager to make sure fsharp does point to the Visual Studio 2012\Code Snippets folder. Some computers still points to Visual Studio 11\Code Snippets folder.

If you find anything odd, please either shoot me message on twitter (ttliu2000) or fsbugs@microsoft.com

Tweet to fsharp