Access Basecamp Through .NET API Wrapper

• Download source files - 49.4 KB

Introduction

This wrapper simplifies calls to the Basecamp API by returning .NET objects.

How I Built It

1. First, I created a class for each response type returned by the Basecamp API.
   • AbbreviatedPost
   • AttachmentCategory
   • Comment
   • Category
   • Milestone
   • Person
   • Post
   • PostCategory
   • Project
   • TodoItem
   • TodoList

   Each of these classes then provided a static method that can parse an XML response into a generic list of that type.

   C#

   public static IList<Project> Parse(XmlNodeList projectNodes)

2. Next, I created the BasecampManager class that would do the work to format the request, parse the response, and return the desired object.
   C#

   public IList < Project > GetProjects() 
   {
       string cmd = "/project/list"; 
       IList<Project> projects = null;
       if (IsInitialized())
       {
           XmlDocument xml = SendRequest(cmd, "");
           projects = Project.Parse(xml.SelectNodes("//project"));
       }
       return projects;
   }

3. Next, I needed to handle requests that required an input request XML string.

   I accomplished this, by adding another static method to the specific domain classes that could generate an XML request string from an incoming set of parameters.

   C#

   public static string CreateCommentRequest(int postID, string body)
   {
       System.IO.StringWriter sw = new System.IO.StringWriter();
       XmlWriter w = new XmlTextWriter(sw);
       w.WriteStartElement("request");
       w.WriteStartElement("comment");
       w.WriteStartElement("post-id");
       w.WriteString(postID.ToString());
       w.WriteEndElement(); //end postID
       w.WriteStartElement("body");
       w.WriteString(body);
       w.WriteEndElement(); //end body
       w.WriteEndElement(); //end comment
       w.WriteEndElement(); //end request
       return sw.ToString();
   }

   I called this method then from my BasecampManager when I needed to create a Basecamp comment:

   C#

   public Comment CreateComment(int projectID, int postID, string body)
   {
       string cmd = "/msg/create_comment";
       string request = Comment.CreateCommentRequest(postID, body);
       XmlDocument xml = SendRequest(cmd, request);
       Comment comment = null;
       IList<Comment> comments = 
               Comment.Parse(xml.SelectNodes("//comment"));
       if (comments.Count > 0)
       {
           comment = comments[0];
       }
       return comment;
   }

4. I then repeated this process for each request/response that I wished to implement.

How To Use It

Step 1) Initialize connection information

Option 1: Use an application configuration file

• basecamp_projectURL: project URL excluding the HTTP/HTTPS prefix
• basecamp_userName/basecamp_password: user/password that has access to the desired project
• basecamp_secureMode: true if using HTTPS, false otherwise
  C#

  BasecampManager b = new BasecampManager();

Option 2: Set connection details at construction

BasecampManager b = new BasecampManager(url, username, pwd, secure);

Option 3: Override configuration values

BasecampManager b = new BasecampManager();
b.Url = "myproject.projectpath.com";
b.Username = "myusername";
b.Password = "mypassword";
b.SecureMode = false;

Step 2) Call Methods to Retrieve/Update Data

IList <Project> projects = b.GetProjects();

That's it! Have fun investigating and using the other methods I wrapped. I hope you find this very simple and hopefully useful.

What I Didn't Do and What You Might Want To Improve

• There are a couple places in the Basecamp API that different responses contain slightly different object signatures. For example: Company is returned differently when contained in a project than when selecting a list of companies. I created a couple constructors that take this into account, but may have missed some of the finer points on this one.
• There are also some attributes that don't get passed depending on the requestor's permission level. For now, I only wrap these in a try/catch that swallows any exceptions. Person.Parse is a good example of this.
• I had some DateTime variables that I had to set to 1/1/1900 instead of null. Person.Parse is a good example of this.
• I did not implement time-tracking or some of the modify (update/add/delete) for all methods.
• While I tested the methods, I found that updating/deleting comments was not working. I'm not sure if this was me, or something with the Basecamp API.
• You may find that your Basecamp data causes unhandled exceptions when trying to load the .NET objects since you may have data in your projects that I do not and did not test.

Credit

I must give credit for the beginning implementation of BasecampManager. I used the API I found by Munsifali Rashid at http://www.munit.co.uk/blog/2006/04/17/c-wrapper-for-basecamp-api/. I modified it slightly according to a post on the Basecamp forum:

webRequest.ServicePoint.Expect100Continue = false;