UmbracoMapper

Often in code there is a need to 'map' one object's properties to another type of object. The 'type of objects' are not related by inheritance or interface. (Think database layer object, passing information to a presentation layer ViewModel etc). In these circumstances, it can save time and provide consistency to consolidate the logic to map between the options into one set of 'Mapping' rules.

UmbracoMapper was originally introduced to solve some issues in the Umbraco core code. However, it is fine for anyone to use in their custom site implementations or packages as they wish.

Accessing the IUmbracoMapper

The IUmbracoMapper is registered with Dependency Injection (DI). It can therefore be injected into constructors of controllers, custom classes etc, wherever DI is used.

Mapping

Mapping with the UmbracoMapper works in ways similar to AutoMapper:

// assuming source is ISource, create a new target instance
var target = umbracoMapper.Map<ITarget>(source);

// assuming both source and target already exists
target = umbracoMapper.Map(source, target);

The UmbracoMapper class also defines explicit methods to map enumerables:

// assuming sources is IEnumerable<ISource>, map to IEnumerable<ITarget>
var targets = umbracoMapper.MapEnumerable<ISource, ITarget>(sources);

Explicit mapping of enumerables enumerates the source items, and map each item individually.

It can also implicitly map enumerables. The following code is also valid:

// assuming sources is IEnumerable<ISource>, map to IEnumerable<ITarget>
var targets = umbracoMapper.Map<IEnumerable<ITarget>>(sources);

If a mapping has been defined from IEnumerable<ISource> to IEnumerable<ITarget>, then it will be used. Otherwise, the UmbracoMapper will look for a mapping from the source type to the target type, pretty much like the explicit method.

Defining mappings

Mappings are defined in IMapDefinition instances. This interface defines one method:

void DefineMaps(IUmbracoMapper mapper);

Mappings are registered (and must be registered) via a collection builder:

builder.WithCollectionBuilder<MapDefinitionCollectionBuilder>()
    .Add<MyMapDefinition>();

A definition provides a constructor, and a map:

public void DefineMaps(IUmbracoMapper mapper)
{
    mapper.Define<ISource, ITarget>(
        (source, context) => { ... },           // constructor
        (source, target, context) => { .... }   // map
    );
}

The constructor function is used to create an instance of the target class. The most basic implementation would be:

(source, context) => new TargetClass(),

The mapping action is used to map an instance of the source class, to an instance of the target class. The most basic implementation would be:

(source, target, context) =>
{
    target.MyProperty1 = source.MyProperty1;
    target.MyProperty2 = source.MyProperty2;
    ...
}

The constructor function is used whenever the mapper is asked to create a target instance. Then, the mapping action is used.

In other words, umbracoMapper.Map<ITarget>(source) will first run the construction function, and then the mapping action. On the other hand, umbracoMapper.Map(source, target) where target already exists, would only run the mapping action.

The UmbracoMapper class provides multiple overloads of the Define method:

• An overload accepting a constructor function and a mapping action, as presented above.

• An overload accepting a mapping action only, which tells the mapper how to map to an existing target (but the mapper will not be able to create new target instances).

• An overload accepting a construction function, which tells the mapper how to create new target instances (but the mapper will not perform any additional mapping).

• A parameter-less overload, which defines a "no-operation" mapping (the mapper cannot create new target instance, and mapping does nothing).

Context

Both constructor functions and map actions presented above expose a context parameter which is an instance of MapperContext and provides two types of services:

• An Items dictionary which can store any type of object, using string keys, and can be used to carry some context along mappings;

• Some Map and MapEnumerable functions that can be used in mapping functions, to recursively map nested elements, while propagating the context.

The context is used, for instance, to carry the culture when mapping content items with variants. See the MapperContextExtensions class, which contains methods such as:

public static void SetCulture(this MapperContext context, string culture)
{
    context.Items[CultureKey] = culture;
}

And

public static string GetCulture(this MapperContext context)
{
    return context.HasItems &&
            context.Items.TryGetValue(CultureKey, out var obj) &&
            obj is string s
        ? s
        : null;
}

Every Map and MapEnumerable method exposed by the UmbracoMapper have overloads that can manipulate the context before executing the mapping. For instance,

var target = umbracoMapper.Map<ITarget>(source, context =>
    {
        context.SetCulture(cultureName);
    });

Umbraco.Code

Umbraco.Code is an assembly which should contain coding utilities for Umbraco. At the moment, it contains only one Roslyn analyzer, the MapAllAnalyzer, which is used to help writing mapping methods.

The code lives in the Umbraco.Code repository and the tool is available via Nuget. It is included as a development dependency in Umbraco.

The analyzer examines every method mapping from a source to a target, and being marked with the // Umbraco.Code.MapAll comment block:

mapper.Define<ISource, ITarget>(
        (source, context) => new Target(),  // constructor
        Map                                 // map
    );

// Umbraco.Code.MapAll
private static void Map(ISource source,
                        ITarget target,
                        MapperContext context)
{
    target.Property1 = source.Property1;
    target.Property2 = source.Property2;
}

The analyzer verifies that every publicly settable property of target is assigned a value. If a property is not assigned a value, the tool raises a build error (ie. the code will not compile).

Since, contrary to AutoMapper, mapping is not implicit nor automatic, this ensures that an error would be raised. Should a new property be added to ISource, the corresponding mappings must be updated.

It is possible to exclude some properties from the check:

// Umbraco.Code.MapAll -Property2

And the comment can be repeated if the list of excluded properties is long:

// Umbraco.Code.MapAll -Property2 -Property3 -Property4
// Umbraco.Code.MapAll -Property5 -Property6 -Property7

The analyzer follows the standard analyzer development patterns, and building the code in Release mode produces the appropriate NuGet package.

Full example

Below you will find a full example showing you how to map a collection of type Product to a collection of type ProductDto.

#region Models

public class Product
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public string SuperSecretThingNotForPublicDisplay { get; set; }
}

[DataContract(Name = "product")]
public class ProductDto
{
    [DataMember(Name = "name")]
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

#endregion

#region Mapping

public class ProductMappingDefinition : IMapDefinition
{
    public void DefineMaps(IUmbracoMapper mapper)
    {
        mapper.Define<Product, ProductDto>((source, context) => new ProductDto(), Map);
    }

    private void Map(Product source, ProductDto target, MapperContext context)
    {
        target.Name = source.Name;
    }
}

#endregion

#region Composing

public class ProductComposer : IComposer
{
    public void Compose(IUmbracoBuilder builder)
    {
        builder.WithCollectionBuilder<MapDefinitionCollectionBuilder>()
            .Add<ProductMappingDefinition>();
    }
}

#endregion

public class ProductsController : UmbracoApiController
{
    private readonly IUmbracoMapper _mapper;

    public ProductsController(IUmbracoMapper mapper) => _mapper = mapper;

    [HttpGet]
    public HttpResponseMessage GetAll()
    {
        var products = FakeServiceCall();
        var mapped = _mapper.MapEnumerable<Product, ProductDto>(products);

        return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, mapped);
    }

    [HttpGet]
    public HttpResponseMessage GetFirstProduct()
    {
        var product = FakeServiceCall().First();
        var mapped = _mapper.Map<ProductDto>(product);

        return Request.CreateResponse(HttpStatusCode.OK, mapped);
    }

    private IEnumerable<Product> FakeServiceCall()
    {
        return new List<Product>()
        {
            new Product()
            {
                Name = "Umbraco Cloud",
                SuperSecretThingNotForPublicDisplay = "Secret"
            },
            new Product()
            {
                Name = "Umbraco Forms",
                SuperSecretThingNotForPublicDisplay = "Also secret"
            }
        };
    }
}

Result from /umbraco/api/products/getall:

[
    {
        "name": "Umbraco Cloud"
    },
    {
        "name": "Umbraco Forms"
    }
]

Result from /umbraco/api/products/getfirstproduct:

{
    "name": "Umbraco Cloud"
}