Simple C# Email Template 'System'
Posted at 02:04 a.m.
on 02/12/2010
by Daniel
As part of the new email system in Kustom Page, I decided to build a quick little template system, based off models, that could populate email fields, instead of doing a string.Format.
You pass it in a model (C# object), it runs through each of the properties, and applies them to the template file. Simple? Yes.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Reflection;
using System.IO;
namespace KustomPage.Emailer.Client.TemplateEngine
{
public class TemplateEngine<T>
{
private readonly T _templateModel;
private readonly string _templateFilePath;
public TemplateEngine(T templateModel, string templateFilePath)
{
_templateModel = templateModel;
_templateFilePath = templateFilePath;
}
/// <summary>
/// Renders the template.
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
public string Render()
{
IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, object>> modelProperties = GatherModelPropertiesAndValues();
var output = LoadTemplate();
foreach (var modelProperty in modelProperties)
{
output = output.Replace("<<" + modelProperty.Key + ">>", ObjectToString(modelProperty.Value));
}
return output;
}
/// <summary>
/// Loads the template.
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
private string LoadTemplate()
{
return File.ReadAllText(_templateFilePath);
}
/// <summary>
/// Converts the objects to a string.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="value">The value.</param>
/// <returns></returns>
private static string ObjectToString(object value)
{
if (value == null)
return string.Empty;
if (value.GetType() == typeof(string))
return (string)value;
if(value.GetType() == typeof(DateTime))
{
// Add formatting here at some point
DateTime dateTime = (DateTime)value;
return dateTime.ToString();
}
return value.ToString();
}
/// <summary>
/// Gathers the model properties and values into a dictionary
/// </summary>
/// <returns></returns>
private IEnumerable<KeyValuePair<string, object>> GatherModelPropertiesAndValues()
{
IDictionary<string, object> properties = new Dictionary<string, object>();
foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in _templateModel.GetType().GetProperties())
{
string name = propertyInfo.Name;
object value = propertyInfo.GetValue(_templateModel, null);
properties.Add(name, value);
}
return properties;
}
}
}
Sample usage
Model
using System;
namespace KustomPage.Emailer.Client.Tests.TemplateEngine
{
public class TemplateModel
{
public string Name { get { return "Daniel"; } }
public string URL { get { return "http://www.kustompage.com/"; } }
public DateTime Date { get; set; }
}
}
And using it...
var model = new TemplateModel { Date = DateTime.Now };
TemplateEngine<TemplateModel> templateEngine = new TemplateEngine<TemplateModel>(model, "EmailTemplates/Test.txt");
var output = templateEngine.Render();
Sample template
Hello <<Name>>, Pelase verify your account by clicking on the link below: <<URL>> This message was generated at <<Date>>
