Text Template Transformation Toolkit: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:38, 19 March 2013

Revision as of 04:26, 19 November 2013

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[[Microsoft]]'s '''Text Template Transformation Toolkit''' (usually referred to as "T4") is a template based text generation framework included with [[Visual Studio]]. T4 source files are usually denoted by the file extension ".tt".

T4 is used by [[Developer (software)|developers]] as part of an application or tool [[Framework (computer science)|framework]] to automate the creation of text files with a variety of parameters. These text files can ultimately be any text format, such as code (for example [[C# |C#]]), [[XML template engine|XML]], HTML or [[XAML Browser Applications|XAML]].

T4 uses a custom template format which can contain .NET code and string literals in it, this is parsed by the T4 command line tool into .NET code, compiled and executed. The output of the executed code is the text file generated by the template<ref name="Templatesza">{{citation|author=Web Templates|title=Website templates|url=http://www.websitetemplates.org.za/website-templates-type/|accessdate=19 November 2013|year=2013|publisher=Website Templates South Africa|isbn=978-1-4251-3374-0}}</ref>. T4 can also be completely run within the .NET applications via the use of the TextTransformation class which eliminates the need for the end user to have Visual Studio installed.

T4 is used within Microsoft in [[ASP.NET MVC]] for the creation of the views and controllers, [[ADO.NET Entity Framework]] for entity generation, and [[ASP.NET Dynamic Data]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://blogs.msdn.com/b/davidebb/archive/2008/11/26/fun-with-t4-templates-and-dynamic-data.aspx |title=Fun with T4 templates and Dynamic Data - Angle Bracket Percent - Site Home - MSDN Blogs |publisher=Blogs.msdn.com |date=2008-11-26 |accessdate=2012-05-17}}</ref> It is also used outside of Microsoft in projects such as [[SubSonic (software)|SubSonic]]<ref>{{cite web|author=January 12, 2009 |url=http://gcapnias.wordpress.com/2009/01/12/subsonic-v3%e2%80%99s-t4-templates/ |title=SubSonic v3’s T4 Templates « Daily Cycle |publisher=Gcapnias.wordpress.com |date=2009-01-12 |accessdate=2012-05-17}}</ref>

T4 templating is also supported in [[MonoDevelop]].

==Criticism==