In part 1 you saw what items were created to for the data exchange process. Now I want to show you some of the backend so you can get a better picture on how they are connected. In this blog I will go over the Converters section. You can find the source code here for reference.

This is a snapshot of each folder that was created and the corresponding class file.

RedditFeedFieldValueAccessorConverter.cs

Let’s start with Value Access Converter. Below is the code.

The TemplateId ({68BD9AAD-635F-40F3-9ACD-711662C59EEC}) being set refers to the following template. This template inherits from the Value Accessor template installed by the DEF package.

So how this corresponds to Sitecore is simple. A Value Accessor Set item is created and the items underneath it use this template. In the RedditFeedFieldValueAccessorConverter class it is setup to get the value of that field using the combination of the template and the field name defined in the RedditFeedFieldValueValueAccesorItemModel. You will see how this is tied in to other parts of the DEF process as we go along.

In the code you will notice a ValueReader and a ValueWriter are defined. The ValueReader is used to read in the feed and match the fields for each Reddit blog item. That uses the RedditFeedValueReader class as you will see in another part of the blog. The ValueWriter defines a new PropertyValueWriter class. That class is part of the DEF and used to convert the field values.

RedditFeedValueReader.cs

This class will process the Reddit Post item and match field name with value. Title, AuthorName, SelfText etc… are field names in the Reddit feed. I believe you can name these differently, but I prefer to keep the same name as it is in the Reddit Post item.

RedditEndPoint.cs

The Reddit End Point will have the information for the Blog Path in Reddit. The TemplateId defined points to the RedditEndPoint template. Settings are returned and added to the plugin. The plugin is required to be implemented by the pipeline converter and processor.

This is the model plug in code:

This is values of the Reddit Endpoint. You can see that the Converter Type points to the RedditEndPoint class.

More about this later, but as you can see in the Reddit Pipeline Step the Reddit Endpoint is selected. Now you can see how this all ties together.

RedditEndPointConverter.cs

The converter is one of the most crucial parts of the DEF. This is what ties together the pipeline step of the DEF. The TemplateId is the template id of the Reddit Pipeline step. As you can see the endpoint settings are passed in to the pipeline step.

Looking in Sitecore you can see where they Converter Type points to the Endpoint Converter and also the Processor Type which will get called and receive the end point information and do the Reddit Feed processing. More about that in another blog though.

Hopefully you are seeing how some of this stuff is tied together. In part 3 of the blog I will talk a little about the models which will be a short blog. Part 4 I will get into the processor. Let me know if you have any questions.