Nimrod

Nimrod is an ASP.NET MVC/ASP.NET Web API to TypeScript Converter.

That means that it will take all your exising MVC or Web API application, and generate TypeScript models and services correponding to your C# code.

Normally, you have to write the model code two times, one time in the backend langage (Java, Ruby, PHP, C#), and one time in the frontend langage (JavaScript).

Unless your backend is node.js. This implies a lot of boilerplate code.

This library allows you to skip the step to rewrite your frontend code by generating all the TypeScript code for you, so you can use the power of a strongly type language like TypeScript.

Example

C# code

namespace Nimrod.Test
{
    public class Movie
    {
        public string Name { get; }
        public double Rating { get; }
        public List<string> Actors { get; }
    }
    public class MovieController : Controller
    {
        [HttpGet]
        public JsonNetResult<Movie> MovieById(int id)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }
    }
}

Generated TypeScript code

/* Nimrod.Test.ts */
import { RestApi, RequestConfig } from '../Nimrod';
export interface IMovie {
    Name: string;
    Rating: number;
    Actors: string[];
}
export class MovieService {
    public Movie(restApi: RestApi, id: number, config?: RequestConfig) {
    (config || (config = {})).params = {
        id: id
    };
    return restApi.Get<IMovie>('/Movie/MovieById', config);
}

You will need to implemented the object RestApi and RequestConfig according to your javascript framework. It could be Angular or React or whatever, here is an example that works for Angular:

export interface RequestConfig extends angular.IRequestShortcutConfig {
}

The restApi parameter is a wrapper you must write that will wrap the logic of the ajax request. The wrapper has to implement the RestApi interface which is composed of the four methods Get, Post, Put and Delete.

Example with Angular and the $http angular service:

class RestApi implements Nimrod.IRestApi {
    static $inject: string[] = ['$http'];
    constructor(private $http: ng.IHttpService) {
    }

    public Get<T>(url: string, config?: ng.IRequestShortcutConfig) {
        return this.$http.get<T>(url, config)
    }

    public Post<T>(url: string, data: any, config?: ng.IRequestShortcutConfig) {
        return this.$http.post<T>(url, data, config);
    }

    public Put<T>(url: string, data: any, config?: ng.IRequestShortcutConfig) {
        return this.$http.put<T>(url, data, config);
    }

    public Delete<T>(url: string, config?: ng.IRequestShortcutConfig) {
        return this.$http.delete<T>(url, config);
    }
}

How does it work?

When you launch Nimrod, the following steps happen:

• Load the assembly and search for classes which inherit from Web.Mvc.Controller or Web.Http.Controllers.IHttpController
• From thoses classes, search for public methods which have one of the following attribute HttpGet, HttpPost, HttpPut, HttpDelete, in either system.web.mvc or system.web.http namespaces.
• Recursively search all classes referenced by the generic return of those methods (see below), and their arguments
• Generate TypeScript files for all those classes

Usage

Command line

Use the Nimrod.Console utilities to generate files

Nimrod.Console.exe -o .\\src\\ServerApi.Generated --files=..\\assembly1.dll,..\\assembly2.dll',

Options

Name	Alias	Description
--output	-o	Directory where files will be generated
--files	-f	Assembly files to read, separated by a comma. Example : --files=bin\Assembly1.dll,bin\Assembly2.dll
--verbose	-v	Prints all messages to standard output
--help	-h	Prints a usage message showing the command line syntax
--strictNullCheck	-n	Usage of nullables types, compatible for typescript 2.0

---

Grunt

A task named grunt-nimrod has been created to easily use the grunt task manager to generate the typescript files.

Getting Started

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-nimrod --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-nimrod');

Example

module.exports = function(grunt) {
  grunt.initConfig({
    nimrod: {
      default_options: {
        options: {
			output: 'C:\\temp\\nimrod-test-generated',
			files : ['C:\\path\\to\\assembly1\\assembly1.dll'
				    ,'C:\\path\\to\\assembly2\\assembly2.dll']
        }
      }
    }
  });
  grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-nimrod');
}

---

Questions & Answers

Q: Why didn't the generator write the class JsonNetResult?

On the C# side in a MVC controller action, when returning JSON data the model object is formatted using a call to Json(). As we need to detect the type of the model, we oblige the user of our library to wrap the return type into a generic JsonNetResult<Foo>. We don't generate the model itself, but the type inside of it.

If your action returns Json(new Foo<Bar>()) we require you to change the method return type to JsonNetResult<Foo<Bar>>. Nimrod will generate typescript classes for Foo and Bar.

Q: DateTime is a C# type serialized to a number or a string in JavaScript, not a JavaScript Date object, why Nimrod is lying?

Yes, Nimrod is lying, we are sorry. There is no standard way to represent date in the JSON format. Still, we believe that every Date object server side should be a Date object client side, not matter what JSON say. To use Nimrod properly with Date, you should do something to automatically parse your Date coming from server (either string or number) to Date object client side. An example on how to do it in Angular can be found here: Automatic JSON date parsing with AngularJS.

Q: I only need those models generators, not all the fancy service controller whatever stuff, can you do it?

We plan to deliver a version of the converter only for POCOs, but pull requests are welcomed

Q: Where did the name 'Nimrod' come from?

Like every other convertor/translator in the world, we wanted to name the library 'Babel'. That seems not such a good idea on a search. So we looked at who built Babel, and it was a dude called Nimrod, that's it!

Todos

• Refactoring
• Docs
• Limitations on generics, specifically return embed generics. IE : a method returning a Json<List<Tuple<int, string>>> is not going to work

Quality

Nimrod uses SonarQube to analyse the quality of the code. Find the full analysis on the public server of Sonarqube.