Help offered. Start developing the Client libraries for C# and F#

[iskandersierra]

I would like to work on a first draft for a C# client. How would it be possible to star collaborating with the SurrealDB team?

I'm also interested on creating the F# library as an extension of the main C# driver.

[mortalapeman]

Funny, I was also thinking working on a client implementation other way around for my personal project just today.

[iskandersierra]

What do you mean @mortalapeman ? Working first on F#? 😄

That was my first reaction too, but thinking on the dotnet community, I thought that working on a C# friendly version first is more valuable, for the community and for this issue to move forward.

After posting the issue I found out that @Spylak started to work on a C# client, but I don't know if it is still WIP or just staled.

The REST API is very simple, so I think that the fundamentals could be developed very quickly. The query builder, if developed, would take more time, of course.

[Spylak]

Hello @iskandersierra , I did an initial implementation here which is kind of simple with all the endpoints that I saw while reading the documentation but then I found out that someone had done a more detailed implementation here so I stopped working on it.

[mortalapeman]

@Spylak I am not sure why I thought that last repo you linked was empty, maybe because the parent org of the repo has no members? Either way, that looks like something worth contributing to.

@iskandersierra Yes, working on F# first. Mostly because it would be more fun for me personally and therefore more likely that I would actually follow through and try to maintain it. I do realize that .NET is heavily C# biased, I just have a hard time using it in my free time.

[iskandersierra]

Then go ahead 💪! Start working on the F# version. Given that dotnet is "shared" between C# and F#, let start with a repo structure where both can live. Let me know if I can make some code reviews when you have something.
@tobiemh and @jaimemh could lay some minimal rules on this proposal.

[mortalapeman]

Then go ahead 💪! Start working on the F# version. Given that dotnet is "shared" between C# and F#, let start with a repo structure where both can live. Let me know if I can make some code reviews when you have something. @tobiemh and @jaimemh could lay some minimal rules on this proposal.

If you have free time, I would not wait on me to get started. I have about an hour and a half each evening to do this kind of work, so my time is a bit limited. But if I do get something up, I will certainly reach out asap.

[iskandersierra]

@mortalapeman @Spylak @tobiemh @jaimemh

I started a draft PR here, open for suggestions. It is still a WIP, missing some functionality, docs, benchmarks, tests and samples.

I started implementing the REST-based client, but I cannot find the WebSocket documentation here. So far, the only way around it is by reverse-engineering other clients

Is there any gRPC endpoint? Would that be a desired addition to the server?

[tstraus13]

I actually started working on a C# implementation as well when I saw there was no code in this repo. I guess I should have checked the issues/PRs 🤦. I worked on the Websocket Implementation though. I have connection, signup, and basic query function working but much still left to do. There was no documentation on the Websocket side so I started from the other clients (java, python, js, etc.) and slowly worked my way how each operation works. Maybe we can include an F# and C# implementation in the same repo? Just different projects in the same solution? I am not as familiar with F# but maybe both implementation could share code as well (Models/Classes and such)?

[PhotoAtomic]

Afaik the very same c# dll can consumed with no issue by f# and all the other "iron" languages that are build on the IL have you some evidence that this is not working? Inviato da Outlook per Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg>

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________________________________ From: Tom Strausbaugh ***@***.***> Sent: Friday, May 5, 2023 3:28:48 PM To: surrealdb/surrealdb.net ***@***.***> Cc: Subscribed ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [surrealdb/surrealdb.net] Help offered. Start developing the Client libraries for C# and F# (Issue #2) I actually started working on a C# implementation as well when I saw there was no code in this repo. I guess I should have checked the issues/PRs 🤦. I worked on the Websocket Implementation though. I have connection, signup, and basic query function working but much still left to do. There was no documentation on the Websocket side so I started from the other clients (java, python, js, etc.) and slowly worked my way how each operation works. Maybe we can include an F# and C# implementation in the same repo? Just different projects in the same solution? I am not as familiar with F# but maybe both implementation could share code as well (Models/Classes and such)? — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#2 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAOYW5UGAUAISI4MGPQDHBDXET6BBANCNFSM6AAAAAAUEBWEA4>. You are receiving this because you are subscribed to this thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[mortalapeman]

I actually started working on a C# implementation as well when I saw there was no code in this repo. I guess I should have checked the issues/PRs 🤦. I worked on the Websocket Implementation though. I have connection, signup, and basic query function working but much still left to do. There was no documentation on the Websocket side so I started from the other clients (java, python, js, etc.) and slowly worked my way how each operation works. Maybe we can include an F# and C# implementation in the same repo? Just different projects in the same solution? I am not as familiar with F# but maybe both implementation could share code as well (Models/Classes and such)?

Just to be clear, I had originally thought I might write a client in F# for fun because I like F# and have done a toooon of C# and was bored of it. The one of the only reasons it should ever be done in F# is if I decided I was going to write it myself with little outside help because I do not want to do things in my free time that I do not find to be fun.

My aspirations to write it myself have not panned out, life has happened and such. I am of the opinion that any initial implementation that I am not actively involved in should be done in C# because the general .NET community is built around it. Doing it in C# is not a barrier for any other language built on the .NET runtime.

[vitorrubio]

I found some unoficial implementations for .net driver. One of them could be "promoted" as oficial. Some of they are
https://github.com/tiaringhio/Surreal.NET (only rest client)
there is @Spylak implementation (thanks a lot) https://github.com/Spylak/surrealdb.net (forked from oficial, only rest client yet too)
but the most complete implementation I saw until now is this fork of tiaringhio: https://github.com/Surreal-Net/Surreal.Net
It has HTTP and WS implementations and use Microsoft.IO.RecyclableMemoryStream when serialyzing/desserialyzing json request/response. And are all methods async.

I started to code a .net my own ws implementation just for fun / learning and followed js and go implementations as a guide. It still incomplete and a WiP (and a bit naive).

[Odonno]

Hi everyone,

I know I am late to the party. I worked on a .NET client for the last several weeks. As of this, I made a PR #4 with basic features and I intend to make it the ultimate package for .NET developers using SurrealDB. I also have started the documentation, part on the readme and part for the official doc website here: https://github.com/surrealdb/www.surrealdb.com/pull/250. You can read it if you are interested.

I can see that some of you had questions in this discussion so I will try to answer them here.

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Many of you asked for a F# client. I know that the patterns between C# and F# can be different. I concentrated my efforts first on C# because it is the primary language for .NET. Once the C# version is done, we could mimic the C# package to create a SurrealDb.FSharp package specifically designed for F# developers.

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@iskandersierra SurrealDB only support HTTP(S) and WS(S) for the moment. So, no gRPC. I currently implemented HTTP(S) and WS(S) over TEXT protocol.

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@vitorrubio As I said, I also want this package to be complete, or at least as much complete as possible. There is a lot of effort to make and if you see any interesting feature, please let us know. I know that one of the package you mentioned integrated a Query Builder. That may be something we can add in the future but it should not be part of the "core" package IMO.