Automapper: Convert an int to a string

Question

I am currently using AutoMapper in my c# MVC project and have come across an issue converting from a integer to a string.

I have two classes:

public class Job
{
    public string Prefix { get; set; }
    public int JobNumber { get; set; }
    public int Year { get; set }
    public int JobPriority { get; set; }

    public virtual EntityPriority EntityPriority { get; set; }
}

public class JobViewModel
{
    public string JobNumberFull { get; set; }
{

Using Automapper I would like to join all three properties in the Job class to form a string which will then be mapped to JobNumberFull in the JobViewModel class.:

Prefix-JobNumber-Year

To start I have kept things simple and not concatenated the fields into a string, I have just tried to take JobNumber (int) and map it to JobNumberFull (string) as follows:

Mapper.CreateMap<int, string>().ConvertUsing(Convert.ToString);
Mapper.CreateMap<Job, JobViewModel>()
    .ForMember(d => d.JobPriorityId, opt => opt.MapFrom(s => s.EntityPriority.EntityPriorityID))
    .ForMember(d => d.JobPriorityLevel, opt => opt.MapFrom(s => s.EntityPriority.PriorityLevel))
    .ForMember(d => d.JobNumberFull, opt => opt.MapFrom(s => s.JobNumberYear));
Mapper.AssertConfigurationIsValid();

var jobsList = db.Jobs.Where(j => j.OperationID == operationId).Project().To<JobViewModel>().ToList();

When I run this I get the following error

Type 'System.String' does not have a default constructor

I know this is to do with

Convert.ToString

but I'm not sure what to do about it! I can do Convert.ToInt32 when going from a string to an int and it works like a treat. Do I need to create a custom type converter?

How would I go about getting the string prefix-jobnumber-year?

All help much appreciated.

---

UPDATE

Thanks to the help of Jeremy and the AutoMapper website I have managed to get this working here is my solution, please feel free to comment if you think there is a more elegant solution:

public class Job 
{
    public string Prefix { get; set; }
    public int JobNumber { get; set; }
    public int Year { get; set; }
    public int JobPriority { get; set; }

    public virtual EntityPriority EntityPriority { get; set; }
}

public class JobViewModel 
{
    public int JobNumber { get; set; }
    public int Year { get; set; }
    public string JobNumberFull { get; set; }
}

public enum EntityPriority 
{
  Normal = 0,
  High
}

public interface IValueResolver
{
   ResolutionResult Resolve(ResolutionResult source);
}

public class JobNumberConverter : ValueResolver<Job, string>
{
    protected override string ResolveCore(Job source)
    {
        return string.Format("{0}-{1}-{2}", source.Prefix, source.JobNumber, source.Year);
    }
}

public ActionResult Index()
{
    Mapper.CreateMap<Job, JobViewModel>()
        .ForMember(jvm => jvm.JobNumberFull, opt => opt.ResolveUsing<JobNumberConverter>());
    Mapper.AssertConfigurationIsValid();

    List<Job> jobs = new List<Job>();

    Job j = new Job()
    {
        JobNumber = 1,
        Prefix = "prefix",
        Year = 2013,
        EntityPriority = EntityPriority.High,
        JobPriority = 2
    };

    Job j2 = new Job()
    {
        JobNumber = 2,
        Prefix = "prefix",
        Year = 2013,
        EntityPriority = EntityPriority.High,
        JobPriority = 2
    };

    Job j3 = new Job()
    {
        JobNumber = 3,
        Prefix = "prefix",
        Year = 2013,
        EntityPriority = EntityPriority.High,
        JobPriority = 2
    };

    jobs.Add(j);
    jobs.Add(j2);
    jobs.Add(j3);

    var jobViewModels = jobs.Select(job => Mapper.Map<JobViewModel>(job));

    return View();

}

Answer 1

I think you can use the ResolveUsing method to solve it.

Mapper.CreateMap<Job, JobViewModel>()
    .ForMember(d => d.JobNumberFull,
    exp =>
    exp.ResolveUsing(j => string.Format("{0}-{1}-{2}", j.Prefix, j.JobNumber, j.Year)));