T4 Text Template Directives

Directives provide instructions to the text template transformation engine.

The syntax of directives is as follows:

<#@ DirectiveName [AttributeName = "AttributeValue"] ... #>

All attribute values must be surrounded by double quotation marks. If the value itself contains quotation marks, they must be escaped with the \ character.

Directives are typically the first elements in a template file or an included file. You should not place them inside a code block <#...#>, nor after a class feature block <#+...#>.

• T4 Template Directive

  <#@ template [language="VB"] [hostspecific="true|TrueFromBase"] [debug="true"] [inherits="templateBaseClass"] [culture="code"] [compilerOptions="options"] [visibility="internal"] [linePragmas="false"] #>
  

• T4 Parameter Directive

  <#@ parameter type="Full.TypeName" name="ParameterName" #>
  

• T4 Output Directive

  <#@ output extension=".fileNameExtension" [encoding="encoding"] #>
  

• T4 Assembly Directive

  <#@ assembly name="[assembly strong name|assembly file name]" #>
  

• T4 Import Directive

  <#@ import namespace="namespace" #>
  

• T4 Include Directive

  <#@ include file="filePath" #>
  

• T4 CleanUpBehavior directive

  <#@ CleanupBehavior processor="T4VSHost" CleanupAfterProcessingtemplate="true" #>
  

In addition, you can create your own directives. For more information, see Creating Custom T4 Text Template Directive Processors. If you use the Visualization and Modeling SDK to create a domain-specific language (DSL), a directive processor will be generated as part of your DSL.