Saturday 29 July 2023

Forced cancellation of a CancellationToken

CancellationToken are used to signal that an asynchronous task should cancelled, at some given point in the code from here on a cancellation has been signaled and downstream. Methods downstream are methods and sub methods / sub routines. We can pass a cancellation token into for example Entity Framework Core to cancel a heavy database I/O process. Cancelling a method this way can be invoked on many different ways.


Examples of ways to cancel a cancellation tokens
1. By user interface actions. Like hitting a Cancel button in the UI. For example, the REST client Insomnia allows you to do this. 2. Other means of stopping a task. Inside a browser you can stop requests by reloading a window / tab. For example - If you use Swagger API in a browser, you can refresh the Swagger web page in a tab to indicate a cancellation is desired. The suggested way to programatically cancelling a cancellation token in code is to throw a OperationCanceledException in your code. If you have the Cancellation Token Source - the CTS - you can cancel the cancellation token as you like. Most often you do not have the CTS. You can always throw an OperationCanceledException. The source code can then listen to such a cancellation if you call ThrowIfCancellationIsRequested on the cancellation token. Another way to cancel a cancellation token is to create a linked cancellation token and cancellation the cancellation token source you created for it. This is an alternative way that directly updates the cancellation of a token to be cancelled downstream in case you have some logic further upstream that still should be called instead of directly throwing an OperationCancelledException. Is it a good approach to programatically create a new cancellation token and overwrite it or should you instead just throw an OperationCancelledException ? And why not just stick to the same object ? I am overwriting the token here using ref keyword, since CancellationToken is a struct object. This makes it harder to overwite, since structs are copied by value into methods, such as an extension method. However if this is a good idea or not - I include the code here for completeness.

Defining an extension method on cancellation tokens which can cancel them

CancellationTokenExtension.cs

namespace CarvedRock.Api
{
    public static class CancellationTokenExtensions
    {
        public static void ForceCancel(ref this CancellationToken cancellationToken,
        Func<bool>? condition = null)
        {
            if (condition == null || condition.Invoke())
            {
                var cts = CancellationTokenSource.CreateLinkedTokenSource(
                cancellationToken);
                cancellationToken = cts.Token;
                cts.Cancel();
            }
        }
    }
}


Here is some sample code that shows how we can use this extension method.

Using an extension method that is cancellation cancellation tokens

ProductController.cs

    [HttpGet]
    //[ResponseCache(Duration = 90, VaryByQueryKeys = new[] { "category" })]
    public async Task> Get(CancellationToken cancellationToken, string category = "all")
    {
        cancellationToken.ForceCancel(() => category == "kayak");
        using (_logger.BeginScope("ScopeCat: {ScopeCat}", category))
        {     
            _logger.LogInformation( "Getting products in API.");
            return await _productLogic.GetProductsForCategoryAsync(category, cancellationToken);
        }
    }


So there we have it, we can either use an approach like in this article, creating a temporary new cancellation token source and then created a linked cancellation token from the original cancellation token, overwriting it, and at the same time cancel it, possible by supplying a condition to decide if we want to cancel the cancellation token or not. Or we could just throw an OperationCanceledException. In the example code above I finally make the EF code communicating with the database and supply the cancelation token into a ToListAsync method here. This makes our code cancellable, in case we for example hit big data in the database that is slow and user wants to cancel.

Using an extension method that is cancellation cancellation tokens - downstream code making use of same cancellation token passed into sub method

CarvedRockRepository.cs


  public async Task<List<Product>> GetProductsAsync(string category, CancellationToken cancellationToken)
        { 

//.. Inside GetProductAsync method receiving token - more code above here inside the method

 var productsToSerialize = await _ctx.Products.Where(p => p.Category == category || category == "all")
  .Include(p => p.Rating).ToListAsync(cancellationToken);

// more code inside method below

}
  


Note ! Remember to pass down the cancellation token to your methods and sub methods /sub routines.

Sunday 9 July 2023

Localizing Blazor WASM applications with a language picker

This article presents code how to localize a Blazor WASM app with a language picker. This is part of globalizing an app. The sample app is in this sample app in GitHub: https://github.com/toreaurstadboss/HelloBlazorLocalization

First off, we need to add some Nuget package references, such as adding a capability of using local storage in a convenient way in the Blazor WASM app. The project file of the sample app has this setup :

Project file - HelloBlazorLocalization.csproj
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.BlazorWebAssembly">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net6.0</TargetFramework>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
    <ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
	<BlazorWebAssemblyLoadAllGlobalizationData>true</BlazorWebAssemblyLoadAllGlobalizationData>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Compile Remove="Shared\Resources\**" />
    <Content Remove="Shared\Resources\**" />
    <EmbeddedResource Remove="Shared\Resources\**" />
    <None Remove="Shared\Resources\**" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
	  <PackageReference Include="Blazored.LocalStorage" Version="4.3.0" />
	  <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.WebAssembly" Version="6.0.3" />
	  <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.WebAssembly.DevServer" Version="6.0.3" PrivateAssets="all" />
	  <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization" Version="2.1.1" />
	  <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.AspNetCore.WebUtilities" Version="2.2.0" />
	  <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.Extensions.Localization" Version="6.0.3" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\flag-icons\" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <None Include="HelloBlazorLocalization.sln" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>



Note the use of the property setting : BlazorWebAssemblyLoadAllGlobalizationData This is required to add localization to your Blazor WASM app ! Also note that we use Blazored.LocalStorage to write and access local storage. Let's look at the Program.cs file next how we set up the app.

Program.cs

using Blazored.LocalStorage;
using HelloBlazorLocalization;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Builder;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Web;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.WebAssembly.Hosting;

var builder = WebAssemblyHostBuilder.CreateDefault(args);
builder.RootComponents.Add<App>("#app");
builder.RootComponents.Add<HeadOutlet>("head::after");

builder.Services.AddScoped(sp => new HttpClient { BaseAddress = new Uri(builder.HostEnvironment.BaseAddress) });

builder.Services.Configure<RequestLocalizationOptions>(options =>
{
    string[] supportedCultures = new[] { "no", "en" };
    options
        .AddSupportedCultures(supportedCultures)
        .AddSupportedUICultures(supportedCultures)
        .SetDefaultCulture("no");
});

builder.Services.AddLocalization(options => 
    options.ResourcesPath = "Resources");

builder.Services.AddBlazoredLocalStorage();

await builder.Services.BuildServiceProvider().SetDefaultCultureAsync();

await builder.Build().RunAsync();


An extension method is added to ServiceProvider to load up selected culture from local storage. It also inspects the query string set, if any, since language picker component presented later on will reload the Blazor WASM app after selecting language.


WebAssemblyHostExtensions.cs

using Blazored.LocalStorage;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.WebAssembly.Hosting;
using Microsoft.AspNetCore.WebUtilities;
using System.Globalization;

namespace HelloBlazorLocalization
{

    public static class WebAssemblyHostExtensions
    {
        public async static Task SetDefaultCultureAsync(this ServiceProvider serviceProvider)
        {
            var navigationManager = serviceProvider.GetService<NavigationManager>(); 
            var uri = navigationManager!.ToAbsoluteUri(navigationManager.Uri);
            var queryStrings = QueryHelpers.ParseQuery(uri.Query);
            var localStorage = serviceProvider.GetRequiredService<ILocalStorageService>();

            if (queryStrings.TryGetValue("culture", out var selectedCulture))
            {
                await localStorage.SetItemAsStringAsync("culture", selectedCulture);
            }

            var cultureString = await localStorage.GetItemAsync<string>("culture");
            CultureInfo cultureInfo;

            if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(cultureString))
            {
                cultureInfo = new CultureInfo(cultureString);
            }
            else
            {
                cultureInfo = new CultureInfo("en-US");
            }

            CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentCulture = cultureInfo;
            CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentUICulture = cultureInfo;
        }
    }

}


Now, let's look at the Index.razor file where we repeat some of the code in the extension method shown above.


Index.razor

@page "/"
@using System.Globalization;

@inject NavigationManager NavigationManager
@inject Blazored.LocalStorage.ILocalStorageService LocalStorage
@inject IStringLocalizer<SharedResources> Localizer

<PageTitle>@Localizer["Home"]</PageTitle>

<h1>@Localizer["Home"]</h1>

@Localizer["HomeDescription"]

<SurveyPrompt Title="How is Blazor working for you?" />


@code {

    protected override async Task OnParametersSetAsync()
    {
        var uri = NavigationManager.ToAbsoluteUri(NavigationManager.Uri);
        var queryStrings = QueryHelpers.ParseQuery(uri.Query);
        if (queryStrings.TryGetValue("culture", out var selectedCulture))
        {
            await LocalStorage.SetItemAsStringAsync("culture", selectedCulture);

        }
        else
        {
            selectedCulture = await LocalStorage.GetItemAsStringAsync("culture");
        }
        if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(selectedCulture))
        {
            var cultureInfo = new CultureInfo(selectedCulture);
            CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentCulture = cultureInfo;
            CultureInfo.DefaultThreadCurrentUICulture = cultureInfo;            
        }

    }

}

To localize strings, we first do an inject of the IStringLocalizer as shown in the razor file. We also set the resource key when we fetch the localized text (Value). This is set up in the SharedResource files. This is done in the sample app in three files.
  • An empty class called SharedResources at the root level
  • Two resources files (.resx) called SharedResources.en.resx and SharedResources.no.resx
You can have multiple resource file in Blazor WASM. Note that we in Program.cs set up the ResourcesPath to the sub folder Resources, where we put the .resx files. See the sample app for details (clone the Github repo). Next up, let's look at the LanguagePicker.razor file that will show a language picker. The sample app got flag icons for all flags of countries so check out the folder flag-icons under wwwroot folder in the sample app.


LanguagePicker.razor

@using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Localization
@using Microsoft.Extensions.Options
@using System.Globalization
@inject IOptions<RequestLocalizationOptions> LocalizationOptions
@inject Blazored.LocalStorage.ILocalStorageService LocalStorage

<div class="mt-3 mb-3 mx-5">

    @foreach (var culture in LocalizationOptions.Value.SupportedCultures)
    { 
        
        <a style="cursor:pointer" onclick="location.href = '/?culture=@culture.ToString()';" class="text-decoration-none">
            <img style="width:20px" src="flag-icons/@(culture.Name).png" alt="@culture.Name" />
            <span class="badge rounded-pill mx-1 border border-primary 
            @((culture.ToString() == CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.ToString() || culture.ToString() == _selectedCulture) ?
                "btn btn-success" : "btn btn-info text-dark")">@culture</span>
        </a>  <br />
    }
</div>

@code {
    private string? _selectedCulture;
    protected override async Task OnParametersSetAsync()
    {
        _selectedCulture = await LocalStorage.GetItemAsStringAsync("culture");
    }
}


Note that Blazor WASM app should refresh entirely after choosing another language. Also note that you should set up multiple languages in your browser to get the expected results. You should have the supported languages set up in Blazor WASM, however it might still work to get the localization done if the language settings are not set up to include the specified languages. But if you do not see the expected results, check the language settings in your browser. And as can be seen, we use local storage to persist our selected language. The selected language is displayed with the green button to indicate selected. When the Blazor WASM reloads, the selected language is fetched from local storage. This can be seen in Application => Local Storage in F12 Developer Tools in Chrome for example, when running the app. Blazor WASM supports a reduced set of localization functionality, compared to Blazor server side apps.
A limited set of ASP.NET Core's localization features are supported:

✔️Supported: IStringLocalizer and IStringLocalizer are supported in Blazor apps.

❌Not supported: IHtmlLocalizer, IViewLocalizer, and Data Annotations localization are ASP.NET Core MVC features and not supported in Blazor apps.

Friday 7 July 2023

Mocking Http Client used for Blazor apps using bUnit

This article will look at running http client calls used by Blazor apps using bUnit. First off, bUnit is a library to perform unit tests for Blazor apps. We will look at mocking http client calls in this article. I have added a Github repo with the sample code in this article here :

https://github.com/toreaurstadboss/BlazorHttpClientMocking
Setting up the project Nuget package references of the test project - BlazorHttpClientMocking.Test
 

    <PackageReference Include="bunit" Version="1.21.9" />
    <PackageReference Include="FluentAssertions" Version="6.11.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk" Version="17.5.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Moq" Version="4.18.4" />
    <PackageReference Include="RichardSzalay.MockHttp" Version="6.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="xunit" Version="2.4.2" />
    <PackageReference Include="xunit.runner.visualstudio" Version="2.4.5">
      <IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers; buildtransitive</IncludeAssets>
      <PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
    </PackageReference>
    <PackageReference Include="coverlet.collector" Version="3.2.0">
      <IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers; buildtransitive</IncludeAssets>
      <PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
    </PackageReference>
 
 
We will use the Nuget package RichardSzalay.MockHttp to do much of the mocking of http client. The following helper extension methods allow us to easier add mocking of http client calls.
 
 
Helper extension methods for http client using bUnit - MockHttpClientBunitHelpers.cs
 
using Bunit;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using RichardSzalay.MockHttp;
using System.Net;
using System.Net.Http.Headers;
using System.Text.Json;

namespace BlazorHttpClientMocking.Test.Helpers
{
    public static class MockHttpClientBunitHelpers
    {

        public static MockHttpMessageHandler AddMockHttpClient(this TestServiceProvider services, string baseAddress = @"http://localhost")
        {
            var mockHttpHandler = new MockHttpMessageHandler();
            var httpClient = mockHttpHandler.ToHttpClient();
            httpClient.BaseAddress = new Uri(baseAddress);
            services.AddSingleton<HttpClient>(httpClient);
            return mockHttpHandler;
        }

        public static T? FromResponse<T>(this HttpResponseMessage? response, JsonSerializerOptions? options = null)
        {
            if (response == null)
            {
                return default(T);
            }
            if (options == null)
            {
                options = new JsonSerializerOptions
                {
                    PropertyNameCaseInsensitive = true
                };
            }
            string responseString = response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;
            var result = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<T>(responseString, options);
            return result;
        }

        public static async Task<T?> FromResponseAsync<T>(this HttpResponseMessage? response, JsonSerializerOptions? options = null)
        {
            if (response == null)
            {
                return await Task.FromResult(default(T));
            }
            if (options == null)
            {
                options = new JsonSerializerOptions
                {
                    PropertyNameCaseInsensitive = true
                };
            }
            string responseString = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
            var result = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<T>(responseString, options);
            return result;
        }

        public static MockedRequest RespondJson<T>(this MockedRequest request, T content)
        {
            request.Respond(req =>
            {
                var response = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK);
                response.Content = new StringContent(JsonSerializer.Serialize(content));
                response.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json");
                return response;
            });
            return request;
        }

        public static MockedRequest RespondJson<T>(this MockedRequest request, Func<T> contentProvider)
        {
            request.Respond(req =>
            {
                var response = new HttpResponseMessage(HttpStatusCode.OK);
                response.Content = new StringContent(JsonSerializer.Serialize(contentProvider()));
                response.Content.Headers.ContentType = new MediaTypeHeaderValue("application/json");
                return response;
            });
            return request;
        }


    }
}

 
 
The method AddMockHttpClient, which is an extension method on TestServiceProvider adds the mocked client. In the code above we read the response into a string and deserialize with System.Text.Json, defaulting to case insensitive property naming, since this is default System.Text.Json on web, but not elsewhere, such as in test projects.


Helper methods for serialization - SerializationHelpers.cs
  
using System.Text.Json;

namespace BlazorHttpClientMocking.Test.Helpers
{
    public static class SerializationHelpers
    {

        public static async Task<T?> DeserializeJsonAsync<T>(string path, JsonSerializerOptions? options = null)
        {
            if (options == null)
            {
                options = new JsonSerializerOptions
                {
                    WriteIndented = true,
                    IncludeFields = true,
                    PropertyNameCaseInsensitive = true
                };
            }

            using (Stream stream = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read))
            {
                if (File.Exists(path) && stream.Length > 0)
                {
                    T? obj = await JsonSerializer.DeserializeAsync<T>(stream, options);
                    return obj;
                }
                return default(T);
            }

        }

    }
}

  

Let's look at a unit test which then sets up a mocked http client response that is used in the Blazor sample app on the FetchData page.


using BlazorHttpClientMocking.Test.Helpers;
using Bunit;
using FluentAssertions;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using RichardSzalay.MockHttp;
using static BlazorHttpClientMocking.Pages.FetchData;

namespace BlazorHttpClientMocking.Test
{
    public class FetchDataTests
    {
        [Fact]
        public async Task FetchData_HttpClient_Request_SuccessResponse()
        {
            //Arrange 
            using var ctx = new TestContext();
            var httpMock = ctx.Services.AddMockHttpClient();
            string knownUrl = @"/sample-data/weather.json";
            var sampleData = await SerializationHelpers.DeserializeJsonAsync<WeatherForecast[]>(knownUrl.TrimStart('/')); //trimming start of url since we need a physical path
            httpMock.When(knownUrl).RespondJson(sampleData);

            //Act
            var httpClient = ctx.Services.BuildServiceProvider().GetService<HttpClient>();
            var httpClientResponse = await httpClient!.GetAsync(knownUrl);
            httpClientResponse.EnsureSuccessStatusCode();
            var forecasts = await httpClientResponse.FromResponseAsync<WeatherForecast[]>();

            //Assert 
            forecasts.Should().NotBeNull();
            forecasts.Should().HaveCount(5);
        }

    }
}


In the arrange part of the unit test above, we create a TestContext and add a mocked http client using the extension method shown earlier. We read out the sample json data and set up using the When method and remember to add "/" to the path as this is expected since we have a baseAddress specified on the http client, set to @"http://localhost" default.

We retrieve http client via the Services collection on the TestContext and call BuildServiceProvider and GetService method to get the http client with the mocking. The mocking must be done via the When method and then we get the client. The mocked http client is a singleton service here.

We can also do parameters in the mocking of http client calls.

Using parameters in http client calls

Lets first add parameter support for the Fetchdata razor page. Fetchdata.razor

 @page "/fetchdata/"
 @page "/fetchdata/{id:int}"
 
  
 
 @code {
    internal WeatherForecast[]? forecasts;

    [Parameter]
    public int? Id { get; set; }

    protected override async Task OnInitializedAsync()
    {
        forecasts = await Http.GetFromJsonAsync<WeatherForecast[]>($"sample-data/weather.json");
        if (forecasts != null && Id >= 0 && Id < 5)
        {
            forecasts = forecasts.Skip(Id.Value).Take(1).ToArray();
        }
    }

    public class WeatherForecast
    {
        public DateOnly Date { get; set; }

        public int TemperatureC { get; set; }

        public string? Summary { get; set; }

        public int TemperatureF => 32 + (int)(TemperatureC / 0.5556);
    }
}
 



Let's now look at using parameters in mocked http client calls in another unit test.
 
 
         [Fact]
        public async Task FetchData_HttpClient_With_Parameter_Request_SuccessResponse()
        {
            //Arrange 
            using var ctx = new TestContext();
            var httpMock = ctx.Services.AddMockHttpClient();
            string knownUrl = @"/sample-data/weather.json/0";
            string fileUrl = @"sample-data/weather.json";

            var sampleData = await SerializationHelpers.DeserializeJsonAsync<WeatherForecast[]>(fileUrl); //trimming start of url since we need a physical path
            httpMock.When(knownUrl).RespondJson(sampleData);

            //Act
            var renderComponent = ctx.RenderComponent<FetchData>(p => p
                .Add(fd => fd.Id, 0));

            //Assert 
            renderComponent.Instance.forecasts.Should().NotBeNull();

            renderComponent.Instance.forecasts.Should().HaveCount(1);    
        }
    
 
 
Here we use bUnit's capabilities in rendering Blazor components using the RenderComponent method and we also set the Id parameter here to the value 0 which now will prepare our component with the right forecasts, here only one forecast will be shown. We use the Instance property to look at the forecasts field of the component. internal WeatherForecast[]? forecasts; So bUnit can be used both the mock http client calls and also render Blazor components and also support parametrized calls of mocked http client calls.


Finally a tip concerning letting your internal fields to be available for test project. In the csproj file of the application we can set it up like in this example :

  <ItemGroup>
		<AssemblyAttribute Include="System.Runtime.CompilerServices.InternalsVisibleToAttribute">
			<_Parameter1>BlazorHttpClientMocking.Test</_Parameter1>
		</AssemblyAttribute>
  </ItemGroup>

Here we set up that the test project can see the internals of the blazor app project. This allows the test project to see internal methods and internal fields, internal classes and so on. This allows you to avoid changing parameters or fields in your components from private to public for example and instead change access modifier to internal so the tests can access those members.