Question

I’m using T4 to generate some class definitions and find that I’m getting an underscore in front of my field names.

I have set

code.CamelCaseFields = true;

just to be safe (even though I understand that’s the default) but still end up with _myField rather than myField.

How can I generate a field name without the ‘_’ character?

Also, where is the documentation for T4? I’m finding plenty of resources such as

Code Generation and Text Templates and numerous blogs, but I have not found the class-by-class, property-by-property documentation.

Answer 1

You’re probably talking about EF4 Self Tracking Entities. The CodeGenerationTools class is included via the <#@ include file="EF.Utility.CS.ttinclude"#> directive, which you can find at “[VSInstallDir]\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Entity Framework Tools\Templates\Includes\EF.Utility.CS.ttinclude”.

The FieldName function is defined as such:

private string FieldName(string name)
{
  if (CamelCaseFields)
  {
    return "_" + CamelCase(name);
  }
  else
  {
    return "_" + name;
  }
}

The “_” is hardcoded in the function. Coding your own shouldn’t be difficult. Note that the CodeGenerationTools class is specific to this ttinclude file and isn’t a generic and embedded way to generate code in T4.