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Custom Rule Engine in WPF - MVVM

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11 Sep 2010CPOL8 min read 74.9K   1.3K   95  
Custom Rule Engine approach which can evaluate complex combinations of business rules. A sample application is provided in WPF following the MVVM pattern.
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Reflection;

namespace CustomRulesMVVM.Models
{
    class RuleHelper
    {
        #region Members
        private const string EQUAL = "=";
        private const string NOT_EQUAL = "!=";
        private const string GREATER_THAN = ">";       
        private const string LESSER_THAN = "<";
        #endregion

        #region Private Methods
        /// <summary>
        /// Get value of a property from an object using Reflection
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="objSource"></param>
        /// <param name="propertyName"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        private static object GetValueFromObject(object objSource, object propertyName)
        {
            if (null != objSource)
            {
                PropertyInfo[] properties = objSource.GetType().GetProperties();
                foreach (PropertyInfo info in properties)
                {
                    if (info.Name.ToUpper() == propertyName.ToString().ToUpper())
                    {
                        return info.GetValue(objSource, null);
                    }
                }
            }
            return null;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// This method compares two valus with based on given operating code. Value can be any type and type is checked inside
        /// eg. send ("True","True","=") for comapring two booleans
        /// ("25","20",">") for comparing two integers
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="valueLHS"></param>
        /// <param name="valueRHS"></param>
        /// <param name="operatorCode"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        private static bool ComapareValues(string valueLHS,string valueRHS,string operatorCode)
        {
            bool isBool, isNumeric, isDateTime;
            bool boolValue1, boolValue2 = false;
            double numericValue1, numericValue2 = 0.0;
            DateTime dateValue1, dateValue2 = DateTime.Today;

            try
            {
                //Check if incoming values are boolean/Numeric/Date else it is string
                isBool = Boolean.TryParse(valueLHS, out boolValue1) && Boolean.TryParse(valueRHS, out  boolValue2);
                isNumeric = Double.TryParse(valueLHS, out numericValue1) && Double.TryParse(valueRHS, out numericValue2);
                isDateTime = DateTime.TryParse(valueLHS, out dateValue1) && DateTime.TryParse(valueRHS, out dateValue2);

                //Do comparisons based on value types
                if (operatorCode == EQUAL && (!isBool && !isNumeric && !isDateTime)) //Comparing equal condition of two string values
                    return valueLHS.Equals(valueRHS, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase);
                else if (operatorCode == EQUAL && isNumeric) //Comparing if two numbers are equal
                    return numericValue1 == numericValue2;
                else if (operatorCode == GREATER_THAN && isNumeric) //Checking if Number 1> Number 2
                    return numericValue1 > numericValue2;
                else if (operatorCode == LESSER_THAN && isNumeric) //Checking if Number 1 < Number 2
                    return numericValue1 < numericValue2;
                else if (operatorCode == EQUAL && isBool) //Checkingif two boolean values are equal
                    return boolValue1 == boolValue2;
                else if (operatorCode == EQUAL && isDateTime) //Checking if two datetime values are equal
                    return dateValue1.Equals(dateValue2);
                else
                    return false;
            }
            catch (Exception)
            {
                return false; 
            }            
        }
        #endregion

        #region Public Methods
        /// <summary>
        /// Comparing whether a property value of objSource with customRule.ValueRHS
        /// eg. objSource = Country object, customRule.CodeLHS is CountryName; First valueLHS
        /// (value given by user for CountryName in Country object) is evaluated
        /// using reflection. It is checked with valueRHS (here USA). Similarly for other objects
        /// and properties
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="customRule"></param>
        /// <param name="objSource"></param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static bool EvaluatePropertyValue(CustomRule customRule,object objSource)
        {
            object valueLHS = GetValueFromObject(objSource, customRule.CodeLHS);
            return ComapareValues(Convert.ToString(valueLHS), customRule.ValueRHS, customRule.Operator);
        }
        #endregion
    }
}

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This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Software Developer (Senior) CA-CIB
Singapore Singapore
I am a .Net developer, currently working in Singapore worked wiith Societe Generale Global Solution Centre, Bangalore and was previously with Cognizant.I have more than 8 years of .Net experience in BFSI domain. I am an experienced developer in C#, VB.Net, Silverlight, WPF, WCF, LINQ, Entity Framework, SSIS, NHibernate, ASP.Net and SQL Server.

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