Hi folks,

after having a look at the DNN sources the solution was really simple, but in some way also annoying.

role.RoleID =
Convert.ToInt32(dataProvider.AddRole(role.PortalID,
role.RoleGroupID,
role.RoleName.Trim(),
role.Description.Trim(),
role.ServiceFee,
role.BillingPeriod.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture),
role.BillingFrequency,
role.TrialFee,
role.TrialPeriod,
role.TrialFrequency,
role.IsPublic,
role.AutoAssignment,
role.RSVPCode,
role.IconFile,
UserController.Instance.GetCurrentUserInfo().UserID, (int)role.Status,
(int)role.SecurityMode,
role.IsSystemRole));

The problematic line is: role.Description.Trim()

In my code above I didn't define a description for roleInfo. The Trim() function runs into an error of course if Description is null. There are two things which surprise me nevertheless.

1. The error message is not really helpful.
2. The CreateRole function should also check the parameters Description or RoleName if they are null using Requires.NotNull(). That way the user of the DNN API would immediately see what's going wrong.


Hopefully this will help anybody else if a similar problem arises.

All the best,
Sven

Hi Sebastian,

thanks for your response, I really appreciate that.

But just to be clear. The second post related to code that is part of the DNN Library and not my code. To be more precise it's the function CreateRole() in the class DotNetNuke.Security.Roles.DNNRoleProvider.

Since this is part of the public DNN API I just wanted to emphasize that the preconditions could be better checked using the guard methods DotNetNuke.Common.Requires.NotNull for the role.Description parameter. That way the client of this API would immediately recognize what went wrong. I think there are a lot more places in the DNN sources that could be more "defensive".

But anyway - now everything works as it should and maybe the code snippet in the first post helps someone else trying to create Roles in C#. The snippet is absolutely fine.

BTW thanks for all your answers you already made during the past decade! :) You are really very helpful in these forums!