Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating Namespace

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The Microsoft.VisualStudio.TextTemplating namespace provides classes for the text template transformation functionality. The text template transformation engine is integrated into Visual Studio, and transforms text template files into generated text output files.

The text template transformation process takes a text template file as the input, performs the transformation on the input, and generates a new text file as the output. The engine component controls the process, and interacts with a text template transformation host and one or more text template directive processors to complete the process. For more information, see Code Generation and T4 Text Templates.

The text template transformation process has two steps. In the first step, the text template transformation engine creates a class that is referred to as the generated transformation class. In the second step, the engine compiles and executes the generated transformation class, to produce the generated text output. The generated transformation class is comprised of the code of the text template, that is, the statements, expressions, class features, and boilerplate text in the text template, and the results of calling directive processors. For more information, see Writing a T4 Text Template.

Advanced users might want to implement their own text template transformation engine host or directive processors. For more information, see:

Classes

  Class Description
Public class AssemblyCacheMonitor Monitors the state of the assembly cache.
Public class DirectiveProcessor The abstract base class for a concrete directive processor.
Public class DirectiveProcessorException The exception that is thrown by the text template transformation engine, if an error occurs while processing directives.
Public class EncodingHelper A utility class that gets the encoding of a file from its byte order mark.
Public class Engine The text template transformation engine.
Public class ParameterDirectiveProcessor Directive processor to route simple serializable parameters from callers or the host to the template.
Public class RequiresProvidesDirectiveProcessor The abstract base class for a directive processor that defines and implements a design pattern called requires/provides.
Public class ShadowCopyMonitor Monitors the state of shadow-copied assemblies for use by hosts.
Public class TextTemplatingSession Trivial implementation of text transformation session interface
Public class TextTransformation The abstract base class for all generated transformation classes. This class also provides utility methods and properties for use in text template code.
Public class ToStringHelper A utility class that is used to produce a culture-specific representation of an Object as a String.

Interfaces

  Interface Description
Public interface IRecognizeHostSpecific Directive Processors implement this method to obtain the state of the HostSpecific flag in a text template.