Create a Data-Driven Messaging System: Table 1
Drill Down on the Message Class. As a developer, it's important that you consider carefully what messages you show to the end user. You want to make your messages descriptive, and to avoid simply displaying error messages generated by Visual Studio. This table lists all the properties and methods of the Message class, which drives the data-driven messages approach described in this article.
| Property/Method Name |
Type |
Description |
| DefaultMessage |
String |
This is set to a hard-coded value in the class itself, but can be set programmatically. This string is used if no message can be retrieved from the message store. |
| LastException |
Exception |
Property that holds the last exception that was passed into this class to lookup the message for the application. |
| Storage |
String |
Property that holds the information needed by the GetMessageFromStorage() method to retrieve messages. This could be a full path and file name of an XML file or a connection string. This value should be passed into the constructor of this class. |
| ClassName |
String |
Property that can be set to retrieve a message by the ClassName field. |
| Message |
String |
Property that is set to the message retrieved from the message store. |
| MessageID |
Int32 |
Property that can be set to retrieve a message by the MessageID field. |
| MessageName |
String |
Property that can be set to retrieve a message by the MessageName field. |
| MessageNumber |
Int32 |
Property that can be set to retrieve a message by the MessageNumber field. |
| GetMessage() |
String |
This is a public method that can be called to retrieve a message. There are several overloads that will allow you to specify various combinations of MessageName, MessageID, MessageName and MessageNumber, Exception, etc. |
| GetMessageFromStorage() |
String |
This is a protected, overridable method that is called by the GetMessage() method to retrieve a message from a back end data store such as an XML file or a database table. |
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