Are there tools for generating the clients model from an odata metadata?

Question

Back in the good old days of flex (anyone?) flash builder provided a tool for generating the clients model based on the server model. Is there something similar for generating, say an ember's app model, based on the odata metadata?

Answer 1

datajs documentation does mention the subject. Though the reference for OData.read used in the sample doesn't say explicitly that it interprets the metadata somehow, it seems implied. You'll have to verify that.

It does take an optional metadata object however, suggesting there exists a formal representation for metadata to the library -- I would imagine generated via OData.read. Documentation seems non-existent. I don't know what that looks like.

From there, you should be able to further transform the model to something suitable for Ember.

(datajs is a low-level javascript library that implements client-side OData operations.)

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I also know that JayStack provides a JaySvcUtil, a CLI process assembly (.NET program) that extracts metadata. The destination format is JavaScript code, though the model it uses is specific to JayData. Still, you may be able to work from there.

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As mentioned by Maya, Microsoft provides the OData Client Code Generator, which generates .NET proxies. Might be more difficult to transform that.

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If none of these work for you (which is actually likely), you can always parse the $metadata resource yourself -- I believe it always uses an XML representation in all current versions of OData.

If you need to do it dynamically in the browser, use DOMParser or XMLHttpRequest. More information.

If you can do it statically, then by all means do so -- it's simply best for performance. In this case, you can use whatever language and runtime tools you want to fetch, parse, transform and re-serialize the model.

The format (CSDL) is specified for OData here (v4) and here (v3).

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Finally, check out this list, something new may appear that better fits your needs.

Answer 2

There are two suggestion which may help you.

1, OData provide client code generator to generate client-side proxy class. Just need to pass metadata url, .net client code will be generate for you. You can follow the following blog: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/odatateam/archive/2014/03/11/how-to-use-odata-client-code-generator-to-generate-client-side-proxy-class.aspx

2, If the model means "EdmModel", you can just de-serialize $metadata. OData reader can de-serialize the $metadata to IEdmModel, which can be used in client side. The following is sample code:

HttpWebRequestMessage message = new HttpWebRequestMessage(new Uri(ServiceBaseUri.AbsoluteUri + "$metadata", UriKind.Absolute));
message.SetHeader("Accept", MimeTypes.ApplicationXml);

using (var messageReader = new ODataMessageReader(message.GetResponse()))
{
    Model = messageReader.ReadMetadataDocument();
}