Inject DialogContext to BoolExpression

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. On adaptive dialogs, I am trying to implement custom validation (eg. Calling external API with user input as parameter), custom retry message based on the response of API and store validation result on conversation state.

Describe the solution you’d like I would like BoolExpression to have a method that accepts Func<object, DialogContext, object>, an addition of DialogContext to existing method here

This way, I would be able to access ConversationState via dc.Context.TurnState.Get<ConversationState>() (not injecting ConversationState to dialog) and save validation result on ConversationState by creating property state accessors and calling SetAsync method

Describe alternatives you’ve considered

• Storing ConversationState to dialog class: Still does not have access to DialogContext and TurnContext.

Haven’t tested storing DialogContext, as I thought changes on DialogContext between it is stored and custom validation not reflected on DialogContext.

[tomlm]

You can’t do this declaratively with our current classes, but you can do this easily with custom classes.

For example, if you create a new class which derives from NumberInput and overrides OnRecognizeInputAsync() then you have access exactly to what you need to do your validatation, the dc and async<task>.

        /// <summary>
        /// Called when input has been received, override this method to customize recognition of the input.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="dc">dialogContext.</param>
        /// <param name="cancellationToken">the <see cref="CancellationToken"/> for the task.</param>
        /// <returns>InputState which reflects whether input was recognized as valid or not.</returns>
        protected abstract Task<InputState> OnRecognizeInputAsync(DialogContext dc, CancellationToken cancellationToken);

Something like this:

public class PartNumberInput : NumberInput
{
   // part number database connectionstring
   public StringExpression ConnectionString { get;set;} 
   
   protected override Task<InputState> OnRecognizeInputAsync(DialogContext dc, CancellationToken)
   {
       // call number database to validate
       return InputState;
   }
}

Register it as a custom component and now you have rich partnumber input with async validation.

[chrimc62]

@tomlm Could you comment on this?