Manage tables data with AngularJS Part 1: tables metadata

During the deployment of an AngularJS app, we often develop controllers and views to manage data of basic tables,  such as zip, city, country and so on.

We need to offer to the users the CRUD operations of these tables; the functionalities and the structure of these controllers/view are very similar and you need to implement a lot of similar code to do that.

What you can do is implement the AngularJS directives that are able to show the content of basic tables and manage the CRUD operations.

The start point is a simple AngularJS SPA that consume ASP.NET Web API; the application using Entity Framework 6 code first and the only entity is city.

OData controller

Once the table is configured, what we need to do is implement an OData controller that will expose the CRUD operations of the Cities table and the metadata.

For this example we implement and endpoint that support OData Version 3:

public class CitiesController : ODataController
{
private Context db = new Context();

// GET: odata/Cities
[EnableQuery]
public IQueryable<City> GetCities()
{
return db.Cities;
}

// GET: odata/Cities(5)
[EnableQuery]
public SingleResult<City> GetCity([FromODataUri] Guid key)
{
return SingleResult.Create(db.Cities.Where(city => city.Id == key));
}

// PUT: odata/Cities(5)
public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Put([FromODataUri] Guid key, Delta<City> patch)
{
Validate(patch.GetEntity());

if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
return BadRequest(ModelState);
}

City city = await db.Cities.FindAsync(key);
if (city == null)
{
return NotFound();
}

patch.Put(city);

try
{
await db.SaveChangesAsync();
}
catch (DbUpdateConcurrencyException)
{
if (!CityExists(key))
{
return NotFound();
}
else
{
throw;
}
}

return Updated(city);
}

// POST: odata/Cities
public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Post(City city)
{
if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
return BadRequest(ModelState);
}

db.Cities.Add(city);

try
{
await db.SaveChangesAsync();
}
catch (DbUpdateException)
{
if (CityExists(city.Id))
{
return Conflict();
}
else
{
throw;
}
}

return Created(city);
}

// PATCH: odata/Cities(5)
[AcceptVerbs("PATCH", "MERGE")]
public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Patch([FromODataUri] Guid key, Delta<City> patch)
{
Validate(patch.GetEntity());

if (!ModelState.IsValid)
{
return BadRequest(ModelState);
}

City city = await db.Cities.FindAsync(key);
if (city == null)
{
return NotFound();
}

patch.Patch(city);

try
{
await db.SaveChangesAsync();
}
catch (DbUpdateConcurrencyException)
{
if (!CityExists(key))
{
return NotFound();
}
else
{
throw;
}
}

return Updated(city);
}

// DELETE: odata/Cities(5)
public async Task<IHttpActionResult> Delete([FromODataUri] Guid key)
{
City city = await db.Cities.FindAsync(key);
if (city == null)
{
return NotFound();
}

db.Cities.Remove(city);
await db.SaveChangesAsync();

return StatusCode(HttpStatusCode.NoContent);
}

protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
{
if (disposing)
{
db.Dispose();
}
base.Dispose(disposing);
}

private bool CityExists(Guid key)
{
return db.Cities.Count(e => e.Id == key) > 0;
}
}

Then, you need to configure the OData Endpoint in the WebApiConfig.cs:

public static class WebApiConfig
{
public static void Register(HttpConfiguration config)
{
ODataConventionModelBuilder builder = new ODataConventionModelBuilder();
builder.EntitySet<City>("Cities");
config.Routes.MapODataServiceRoute("odata", "odata", builder.GetEdmModel());
}
}

OData controller is helpful to retrieve the metadata and you can using $metadata keyword:

http://host_name/odata/$metadata

We’ll receive a response like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<edmx:Edmx Version="1.0" xmlns:edmx="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/06/edmx">
<edmx:DataServices m:DataServiceVersion="3.0" m:MaxDataServiceVersion="3.0" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/metadata">
<Schema Namespace="AngularTablesDataManager.DataLayer" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2009/11/edm">
<EntityType Name="City">
<Key>
<PropertyRef Name="Id" />
</Key>
<Property Name="Id" Type="Edm.Guid" Nullable="false" />
<Property Name="Name" Type="Edm.String" />
</EntityType>
<EntityType Name="Zip">
<Key>
<PropertyRef Name="Id" />
</Key>
<Property Name="Id" Type="Edm.Guid" Nullable="false" />
<Property Name="Code" Type="Edm.Int16" Nullable="false" />
</EntityType>
</Schema>
<Schema Namespace="Default" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2009/11/edm">
<EntityContainer Name="Container" m:IsDefaultEntityContainer="true">
<EntitySet Name="Cities" EntityType="AngularTablesDataManager.DataLayer.City" />
<EntitySet Name="Zips" EntityType="AngularTablesDataManager.DataLayer.Zip" />
</EntityContainer>
</Schema>
</edmx:DataServices>
</edmx:Edmx>

AngularJS service

The next step is the implementation of the AngularJS service that parse the metadata; first of all, a class that define the structure of metadata is required:

export class MetadataProperty {
Name: string;
Type: string;
Nullable: boolean;
}

Then, the MetadataService service:

export class MetadataService {
private $http: ng.IHttpService;
private $q: ng.IQService;

constructor($http: ng.IHttpService, $q: ng.IQService) {
this.$http = $http;
this.$q = $q;
}

public getMetadata(entityName: string): ng.IPromise<Array<models.MetadataProperty>> {
var defer: ng.IDeferred<any> = this.$q.defer();

var req = {
method: 'GET',
url: '/odata/$metadata'
};

this.$http(req).then(function (result) {
var data: string = result.data.toString();
var xmlDoc: XMLDocument = $.parseXML(data);
var xml: JQuery = $(xmlDoc);
var properties: Array<models.MetadataProperty> = new Array<models.MetadataProperty>();

xml.find('EntityType').find('Property').each(function () {
var metadataProperty: models.MetadataProperty = new models.MetadataProperty();
metadataProperty.Name = $(this).attr('Name');
metadataProperty.Type = $(this).attr('Type');
metadataProperty.Nullable = ($(this).attr('Nullable') != null) && ($(this).attr('Nullable').toLowerCase() == 'true');

properties.push(metadataProperty);
});

return defer.resolve(properties);
});

return defer.promise;
}

static factory() {
return ($http: ng.IHttpService, $q: ng.IQService) => new MetadataService($http, $q);
}
}

To consume the OData Controller you can use the $resource factory, that allows to perform CRUD operations easily, and extend the service with an additional method called getMetadata:

const entityName: string = 'Cities';
import ngr = ng.resource;
import commons = AngularTablesDataManagerApp.Commons;
import models = AngularTablesDataManagerApp.Models;
import services = AngularTablesDataManagerApp.Services;

export interface ICitiesResourceClass extends ngr.IResourceClass<ngr.IResource<models.ICity>> {
create(order: models.ICity): ngr.IResource<models.ICity>;
}

export class CitiesService implements models.IService {
private resource: ICitiesResourceClass;
private $q: ng.IQService;
private metadataService: services.MetadataService;

constructor($resource: ngr.IResourceService, $q: ng.IQService, MetadataService: services.MetadataService) {
this.$q = $q;
this.metadataService = MetadataService;

this.resource = <ICitiesResourceClass>$resource('/odata/' + entityName + '/:id', { id: '@Id' }, {
get: { method: "GET" },
create: { method: "POST" },
save: { method: "PUT" },
query: { method: "GET", isArray: false },
delete: { method: "DELETE" }
});
}

public create(order: models.ICity) {
return this.resource.create(order);
}

public save(order: models.ICity) {
if (order.Id == commons.Constants.GuidEmpty) {
return this.resource.create(order);
}
else {
return this.resource.save(order);
}
}

public delete(order: models.ICity) {
return this.resource.remove(order);
}

public getAll() {
var datas: ngr.IResourceArray<ngr.IResource<models.ICity>>
var defer: ng.IDeferred<any> = this.$q.defer();

this.resource.query().$promise.then((data: any) => {
datas = data["value"];

return defer.resolve(datas);
}, (error) => {
return defer.reject(datas);
});

return defer.promise;
}

public getMetadata(): ng.IPromise<Array<models.MetadataProperty>> {
return this.metadataService.getMetadata(entityName);
}

static factory() {
return (r: ngr.IResourceService, $q: ng.IQService, MetadataService: services.MetadataService) => new CitiesService(r, $q, MetadataService);
}
}

This method can be called from a controller; we’ll obtain an array of MetadataProperty objects that represents the structure of the Cities table.

import ngr = ng.resource;
import commons = AngularTablesDataManagerApp.Commons;
import models = AngularTablesDataManagerApp.Models;
import services = AngularTablesDataManagerApp.Services;

export class CitiesController {
cities: ngr.IResourceArray<ngr.IResource<models.ICity>>;
city: models.ICity;
title: string;
toaster: ngtoaster.IToasterService;

private citiesService: services.CitiesService;
private constant: commons.Constants;
private metadataProperties: Array<models.MetadataProperty>;

constructor(toaster: ngtoaster.IToasterService, CitiesService: services.CitiesService) {
this.citiesService = CitiesService;
this.constant = commons.Constants;

this.toaster = toaster;
this.title = 'Cities';

this.Load();
}

private Load() {
this.citiesService.getMetadata().then((data) => {
this.metadataProperties = data;
}, (error) => {
this.toaster.error('Error loading cities medatad', error.data.message);
});

this.citiesService.getAll().then((data) => {
this.cities = data;
this.toaster.success('Cities loaded successfully.');
return;
}, (error) => {
this.toaster.error('Error loading cities', error.message);
});
}
}

AngularTablesDataManager.module.controller('CitiesController', CitiesController);

 

You can find the source code here.