How to provide a different strategy for loading application assemblies in Kephas bootstrapper

Question

The default implementation of loading the application assemblies in a Kephas application is to include all assemblies found in the application folder. What if I need to provide a different folder, or if I want to support plugins? How can I specify a different folder, or a list of folders to include in search?

Answer 1

Almost everything in Kephas is configurable, and the IAppRuntime service is no exception. However, unlike the common application services, this is not registered through the [AppServiceContract] attribute, instead it is set and configured during the bootstrap procedure. The main reason behind this behavior is that the IAppRuntime service is required before the composition/IoC container is initialized.

You can find a possible implementation below:

/// <summary>
/// An application runtime supporting plugins.
/// Each plugin is found in its own folder in the Plugins sub directory of the application root folder.
/// </summary>
public class PluginsAppRuntime : DefaultAppRuntime
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="PluginsAppRuntime"/> class.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="assemblyLoader">Optional. The assembly loader.</param>
    /// <param name="logManager">Optional. The log manager.</param>
    /// <param name="assemblyFilter">Optional. A filter for loaded assemblies.</param>
    /// <param name="appLocation">Optional. The application location. If not specified, the current
    ///                           application location is considered.</param>
    public PluginsAppRuntime(
        IAssemblyLoader assemblyLoader = null,
        ILogManager logManager = null,
        Func<AssemblyName, bool> assemblyFilter = null,
        string appLocation = null)
        : base(assemblyLoader, logManager, assemblyFilter, appLocation)
    {
        pluginsFolder = Path.Combine(this.GetAppLocation(), "Plugins");
        this.PluginsFolder = Path.GetFullPath(pluginsFolder);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Gets the pathname of the plugins folder.
    /// </summary>
    public string PluginsFolder { get; }

    /// <summary>
    /// Enumerates the application directories containing assemblies to be loaded.
    /// </summary>
    protected override IEnumerable<string> GetAppAssemblyDirectories()
    {
        var rootDirectory = this.GetAppLocation();
        var appDirectories = new List<string> { rootDirectory };

        appDirectories.AddRange(this.EnumeratePluginFolders());

        var logger = this.GetLogger();
        logger.Info($"Loading application from directories: {string.Join(", ", appDirectories)}");

        return appDirectories;
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Enumerates the root bin folders for the plugins.
    /// </summary>
    public IEnumerable<string> EnumeratePluginFolders()
    {
        var binPluginsFolder = this.PluginsFolder;

        if (Directory.Exists(binPluginsFolder))
        {
            var pluginsDirectories = Directory.EnumerateDirectories(binPluginsFolder);
            return pluginsDirectories;
        }

        return new string[0];
    }
}

/// <summary>
/// For the sake of simplicity, add an extension method to the ambient services builder to make use of this new service.
/// </summary>
public static class PluginsAmbientServicesBuilderExtensions
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Sets the plugins-enabled application runtime to the ambient services.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="ambientServicesBuilder">The ambient services builder.</param>
    /// <param name="assemblyFilter">Optional. A filter specifying the assembly (optional).</param>
    /// <param name="appLocation">Optional. The application location (optional). If not specified, the
    ///                           assembly location is used.</param>
    /// <returns>
    /// The provided ambient services builder.
    /// </returns>
    public static AmbientServicesBuilder WithPluginsAppRuntime(
        this AmbientServicesBuilder ambientServicesBuilder,
        Func<AssemblyName, bool> assemblyFilter = null,
        string appLocation = null)
    {
        Requires.NotNull(ambientServicesBuilder, nameof(ambientServicesBuilder));

        var ambientServices = ambientServicesBuilder.AmbientServices;
        var assemblyLoader = new DefaultAssemblyLoader();
        ambientServices.RegisterService<IAssemblyLoader>(assemblyLoader);

        return ambientServicesBuilder.WithAppRuntime(
            new PluginsAppRuntime(
                assemblyLoader,
                ambientServices.LogManager,
                assemblyFilter: assemblyFilter,
                appLocation: appLocation));
    }
}

/// <summary>
/// Last, but not least, define the application root object.
/// </summary>
public class App : AppBase
{
    /// <summary>Configures the ambient services asynchronously.</summary>
    /// <param name="appArgs">The application arguments.</param>
    /// <param name="ambientServicesBuilder">The ambient services builder.</param>
    /// <param name="cancellationToken">The cancellation token.</param>
    /// <returns>The asynchronous result.</returns>
    protected override async Task ConfigureAmbientServicesAsync(
        string[] appArgs,
        AmbientServicesBuilder ambientServicesBuilder,
        CancellationToken cancellationToken)
    {
        ambientServicesBuilder
            .WithAppConfiguration(new DefaultAppConfiguration())
            .WithPluginsAppRuntime()
            .WithMefCompositionContainer();
    }
}

/// <summary>
/// Now everything is ready to go!
/// </summary>
public static class Program
{
    private static async Task<int> Main(string[] args)
    {
        try
        {
            var result = await new App().BootstrapAsync(args).PreserveThreadContext();
            return 0;
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            return 100;
        }
    }
}