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Program generation happens also at run-time.
So-called re-motion mixins are generated for binding and persistence.
Don't confuse these program generators. They corresponding purposes
don't overlap. With the exception of run-time code generation, all program
generators are command line tools, but wxegen.exe is not usually invoked by
the programmer. (It is invoked by Visual Studio during a build.)
The use of each program generator is discussed in the PhoneBook tutorial,
and also in this wiki.
An entirely different type of program generation is the creation of
so-called "generated types" at run-time. Nothing must be invoked, because
this program generation works tacitly in the background and is completely
transparent to the programmer.
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dbschema.exe is always the first program generator used, because it
derives the database schema for persisting domain objects. dbschema.exe
inspects domain object assemblies to find domain object classes,
their properties and attributes and generates the database
schema – tables and views. dbschema.exe can
be invoked many times in the course of a project, because the programmer
does not modify the generated database schema. (This is in contrast
to uigen.exe that can be run only once before making changes. You must
start from scratch every time you run uigen.exe.)
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uigen.exe enters the stage as soon as you not only have the
properties and attributes for your domain object classes, but also query
methods, factory methods and behavior – in short: the "domain".
You are ready for the web application.
uigen.exe works like dbschema.exe in that it inspects the
domain object classes, properties and attributes in domain object assemblies .
uigen.exe's use is more delicate, however, because it generates the starting point
for programming your web application. You customize and extend that
web application by modifying the generated files. uigen.exe is
not a round-trip tool. If you change properties (types, constraints) in
one or more domain object class, you must uigen.exe again and
start over with your modifications.
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uigen.exe is more picky than dbschema.exe when it comes to usage.
Both program generators must load domain object assembly(s) for discovering
domain object classes, but they resort to different libraries for doing so.
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In practice, you won't have problems with dbschema.exe, because it usually does
the right thing. uigen.exe is a robust program that has been in use for years,
but that's exactly the problem: it is dated. Don't draw conclusions from dbschema.exe
usage to uigen.exe usage, and the other way around. How to avoid uigen.exe
assembly discovery failures is explained in detail in using uigen.exe.
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wxegen.exe will not be called by you, at least not usually.
wxegen.exe works transparently in the background in Visual Studio.
wxegen.exe parses source code, i.e. it does not inspect assemblies.
wxegen.exe is only interested in so-called "WXE headers" – XML
written into comments for pages derived from EditFormPage.
An EditFormPage represents a web edit form for data entry, but it
can be "called" with parameters and has a return value – like a
function. Generating the boilerplate for passing parameters and returning
a value (if desired) is what wxegen.exe is designed to do for you.
Whenever you change something in a source file constituting a class
derived from EditFormPage, wxegen.exe will run and re-generate
the boilerplate. This brief explanation probably remains somewhat
mysterious unless you know what re-call is. There is a known problem
with wxegen.exe: it does not work the first time, due to a Visual Studio
bug. This is explained here: re-motion mascot bug -- wxegen.exe does not work.
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re-store is re-motion's persistence layer, i.e. it provides O/R-mapping
for domain object classes, as declared by the programmer. Persisting such
objects requires sophisticated machinery that can't be provided by the
common baseclass DomainObject alone. For this reason, mixin technology
is used to "mix in" the desired behavior at run-time, before instantiating
a given object for the first time. Mixins in general are explained in
wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixin.
You can find an article series about re-motion mixins in the re-motion
team-blog : FIXMEand in the exhaustive documentation here: re-motion mixins. The hows and whys of generated types can be found here:
generating domain object types at run-time.
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Each program generator is discussed in detail in the PhoneBook tutorial.
For reference (parameters, errors) use the corresponding wiki-pages:
dbschema.exe
uigen.exe
wxegen.exe
generating domain object types at run-time