reflection Archives - DAXRunBase

Finding objects marked for deletion

During our code upgrade we have identified that the SysDeletedObjects configuration keys were still turned on. Also many DEL_-prefixed fields were being referred or used in various places. We had to come up with a way for finding objects marked for deletion.

The documentation gives you an idea of what to do with such elements.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamicsax-2012/appuser-itpro/delete-obsolete-application-objects

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamicsax-2012/developer/best-practices-tables

The following job can produce a CSV file, which contains everything with the DEL_ prefix, their table property and layer information:

static void findDelObjectsinAOTTree(Args _args)
{
    #Properties
    #AOT
    int row;
 
    xRefReferences xRefReferences;
    xRefPaths      xrefPath;
    xRefNames      xrefNames;
    str 4          strMatch = 'DEL_';
    str 100        configKey;
    TreeNode       treeNode;
    TreeNodeIterator        treeNodeIterator;
    TreeNodeTraverser       treeNodeTraverser;
    str 30                  layerObject;
 
    int             i;
    SetEnumerator   setEnumerator;
    Set             layers;
    UtilEntryLevel  layerEnum;
 
    #File
    CommaTextIo commaTextIo;
    FileIOPermission permission;
    CustTable custTable;
    str fileName = @"D:\Temp\delobjectsinAOT.csv";
 
    MenuFunction                    mf;
 
    void findNodes(TreeNode _treeNodeLoc, boolean traverse = false)
    {
        treeNode = TreeNode::findNode(_treeNodeLoc.treeNodePath());
 
        treeNodeIterator = treeNode.AOTiterator();
 
        if (traverse)
        {
            treeNodeTraverser    = new TreeNodeTraverser(TreeNode::findNode(_treeNodeLoc.treeNodePath()));
 
            while (treeNodeTraverser.next())
            {
 
                treeNode = treeNodeTraverser.currentNode();
 
                if (treeNode && findProperty(treeNode.AOTgetProperties(), #PropertyName))
                {
                    if (subStr(treeNode.AOTgetProperty(#PropertyName), 0 , strLen(strMatch)) == strMatch)
                    {
                        if (treeNode && treeNode.TreeNodeType().isLayerAware())
                        {
                            //layerObject     = treeNode.AOTLayers().toString();
                            layers = treeNode.AOTLayers();
                            setEnumerator = layers.getEnumerator();
                            layerObject = '';
                            while (setEnumerator.moveNext())
                            {
                                layerEnum = SetEnumerator.current();
                                layerObject += enum2str(layerEnum);
                            }
                            setEnumerator = null;
                        }
 
                        if (findProperty(treeNode.AOTgetProperties(), #PropertyConfigurationKey))
                        {
                            commaTextIo.write(treeNode.treeNodePath(), treeNode.AOTgetProperty(#PropertyConfigurationKey), layerObject) ;
                            layerObject = '';
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (treeNode.AOTObjectNode())
                            {
                                commaTextIo.write(treeNode.treeNodePath(), '', layerObject) ;
                                layerObject = '';
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
        else
        {
            while (treeNode)
            {
                if (treeNode && findProperty(treeNode.AOTgetProperties(), #PropertyName))
                {
                    if (treeNode && treeNode.TreeNodeType().isLayerAware())
                    {
                        //layerObject     = treeNode.AOTLayers().toString();
                        layers = treeNode.AOTLayers();
                        setEnumerator = layers.getEnumerator();
                        layerObject = '';
                        while (setEnumerator.moveNext())
                        {
                            layerEnum = SetEnumerator.current();
                            layerObject += enum2str(layerEnum);
                        }
                        setEnumerator = null;
                    }
 
                    if (subStr(treeNode.AOTgetProperty(#PropertyName), 0 , strLen(strMatch)) == strMatch)
                    {
                        if (findProperty(treeNode.AOTgetProperties(), #PropertyConfigurationKey))
                        {
                            commaTextIo.write(treeNode.treeNodePath(), treeNode.AOTgetProperty(#PropertyConfigurationKey), layerObject) ;
                            layerObject = '';
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (treeNode.AOTObjectNode())
                            {
                                commaTextIo.write(treeNode.treeNodePath(), '', layerObject) ;
                                layerObject = '';
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
 
                treeNode = treeNodeIterator.next();
            }
        }
 
        treeNode = null;
        treeNodeIterator = null;
        treeNodeTraverser = null;
    }
 
    if (!isRunningOnServer())
    {
        mf = ClassFactory::makeObjectOnServer(classNum(MenuFunction));
        mf.objectType(MenuItemObjectType::Job);
        mf.object(funcName());
        mf.runOn(ClassRunMode::Server);
        mf.run();
       
        return;
    }
    else
    {
        info('running code on server side');
    }
 
    permission = new FileIOPermission(fileName,#io_write);
    permission.assert();
    commaTextIo = new CommaTextIo(fileName,#io_write);
    commaTextIo.outFieldDelimiter('|');
 
    treeNode = TreeNode::findNode(#AOTRootPath);
 
    treeNodeIterator = treeNode.AOTiterator();
    TreeNode = treeNodeIterator.next();
 
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#TablesPath), true);
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#ExtendedDataTypesPath));
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#BaseEnumsPath));
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#ViewsPath), true);
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#TableMapsPath), true);
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#FormsPath));
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#ClassesPath));
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#MenusPath));
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#MenuItemsDisplayPath));
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#MenuItemsOutputPath));
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#MenuItemsActionPath));
    findNodes(TreeNode::findNode(#SecPrivilegesPath));
 
    info('Export has finished');
 
}

The final results looks like this after executing the job for finding objects marked for deletion:

By DAXRunBase|2022-03-31T18:29:44+02:00March 31st, 2022|Categories: AX 2012, Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, MSDyn365FO|Tags: #MSDyn365FO, AOT, AX 2012, Dynamics 365, metadata, reflection, upgrade|0 Comments

Modifying D365FO metadata using reflection

As part of our code upgrade to Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations we have removed some processes, for which the security roles had to be refreshed en mass. For this I have decided to go with modifying D365FO metadata using reflection to see how can we do it with the new file-based repository.

First I have created a new C# project and referred the following 3 Dynamic Link Libraries from the AOSService\PAckagesLocal\bin folder:

Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Metadata
Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Metadata.Core
Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Metadata.Storage

Then the following code was developed, which shows how to manipulate the metadata using the new DiskMetadataProvider classes. In the example below we were working against the JADOperation package and AxSecurityRole objects.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Metadata.Storage;
using Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Metadata.Core.Collections;
using Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Metadata.Providers;
using Microsoft.Dynamics.AX.Metadata.MetaModel;
 
namespace ModifyAOT
{
    class Program
    {
        static bool removeNode(
            AxSecurityRole _role,
            KeyedObjectCollection<AxSecurityPrivilegeReference> _privs,
            string _node
            )
        {
            bool isModified = false;
 
            if (_privs.Contains(_node))
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Removing " + _role.Name + "." + _node);
                _privs.Remove(_node);
                isModified = true;
            }
 
            return isModified;
        }
 
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string packagesLocalDirectory = @"C:\AosService\PackagesLocalDirectory";
            IMetadataProvider diskMetadataProvider = new MetadataProviderFactory().CreateDiskProvider(packagesLocalDirectory);
 
            var l = diskMetadataProvider.SecurityRoles.ListObjects("JADOperation");
            var le = l.GetEnumerator();
 
            while (le.MoveNext())
            {
                bool isModified = false;
 
                AxSecurityRole r = diskMetadataProvider.SecurityRoles.Read(le.Current);
                KeyedObjectCollection<AxSecurityPrivilegeReference> privs = r.Privileges;
 
                isModified = removeNode(r, privs, "JADCCDelayCaptureBatchProcess") || isModified;
                isModified = removeNode(r, privs, "ProfitAccountStatistics_CustItemGenerate") || isModified;
                isModified = removeNode(r, privs, "CCMOrderPadLoginManagementMaintain") || isModified;
 
                if (isModified)
                {
                    ModelSaveInfo model = diskMetadataProvider.ModelManifest.ConstructSaveInfo(diskMetadataProvider.ModelManifest.GetMetadataReferenceFromObject("JADOperation", "AxSecurityRole", r.Name).ModelReference);
                    diskMetadataProvider.SecurityRoles.Update(r, model);
                }
 
            }
 
            Console.WriteLine("Press any key to continue...");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }
    }
}

And this is all that you require for modifying D365FO metadata using reflection.

You can find some other use cases of doing metadata reflection in previous blog posts as well:

Find standard code overlayering in Dynamics 365 FO

By DAXRunBase|2022-03-31T16:43:22+02:00March 31st, 2022|Categories: Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, MSDyn365FO|Tags: #MSDyn365FO, Dynamics 365, metadata, provider, reflection|0 Comments

DictSecurityKey is deprecated

In the new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations release a lot of things have changed in terms of reflection. One of them that we have used frequently for security access validation is gone, DictSecurityKey is deprecated.

You can find a list of still available classes which are mostly used against AOT objects here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/dynamics.ax.application

For example when you wanted to hide a tab on a form in X++, you could just use reflection to do the validation like this:

dictSecurityKey = new DictSecurityKey(buildTabpage.securityKey());
(dictSecurityKey && dictSecurityKey.rights() != AccessType::Delete));

The security framework has been improved/redesigned in D365FO, and now you can achieve the same with the following code:

SecurityRights  securityRights = SecurityRights::construct();
securityRights.formControlAccessRight(form.name(classId2Name(classIdGet(this))), buildTabpage.name()) != AccessRight::Delete;

By DAXRunBase|2022-03-31T15:00:11+02:00March 31st, 2022|Categories: Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, MSDyn365FO|Tags: #MSDyn365FO, AOT, Dynamics 365, metadata, reflection, security|0 Comments

Find standard code overlayering in Dynamics 365 FO

We are preparing for the code upgrade from AX 2012 R3 to D365FO 8.1, the latest version recently released. As you know it is extensions-only, meaning we are not allowed to modify any of the standard objects directly. I would strongly suggest to familiarize yourself with Extensions if you are planning to go down this journey as well. An important part of this is that you need to send in Extensibility requests via LifeCycle Services, for code that cannot be moved to a pre- / post-event handler. Our large number of customized methods came out well above 1000+ overlayered objects when we ran the LCS code upgrade tool on our modelstore. We had to find standard code overlayering of all methods to narrow down the search on what should be inspected for extensibility.

I have been exploring the options to use the MetaData API for extracting package information of methods. We wanted to find any methods, which belongs to both a standard, and a custom package, like ApplicationPlatfrom and ApplicationPlatform.JAD (our module). That did not lead to anything useful other than realizing that you can only access such details up to the root node level (table, class) currently. Here is the code piece for partial results:

(more…)

By DAXRunBase|2020-03-23T13:44:50+01:00October 5th, 2018|Categories: Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations|Tags: #MSDyn365FO, AX 8.1, D365FO, Dynamics 365, extension, metadata, overlayering, reflection, upgrade, XML, XPath, XQuery|0 Comments

AOT property for kernel objects are readable via reflection

There was a question recently on the Dynamics Community forums about finding out which enumeration to use behind an int type. It turned out that the table, field and enum in question was part of the kernel. Those entries reside under the System documentation node of the AOT, and they do not provide much meaningful details. Reflection works on them as well, so you could use the tooling the same way as on regular objects (Dict*, TreeNode objects). Here is a code snippet to read the AOT property for kernel objects.

static void Job1(Args _args)
{
    info(strFmt('%1',
        enumId2Name(
            new DictField(
                tableNum(SecurityPermission),
                fieldNum(SecurityPermission, Access))
            .enumId()))
        );
}

You may also find some examples within the official documentation on how to use reflection. This example is getting class decoration of a method:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamicsax-2012/developer/how-to-use-reflection-to-get-attribute-class-metadata

(more…)

By DAXRunBase|2020-03-23T13:47:16+01:00October 5th, 2018|Categories: AX 2012, Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations|Tags: #MSDyn365FO, AX 2012, D365FO, dict, DictField, dictionary, kernel, metadata, reflection, X++, XppCompiler|0 Comments