VMWare VIM SDK .Net, update CustomFieldValue

[Ondit]

Hi,

I am not sure if this is the correct forum for SDK questions, please redirect me to a correct one if not, but here goes:

I have this code:

public void SetFieldValue(int key, string value)

{

    var customField = (CustomFieldStringValue)this.VirtualMachine.CustomValue.Single(cv => cv.Key == key);

    customField.Value = value;

}

That in itself works, as in, it's visible that the value has changed, but I don't see it reflected upon the actual custom field on the VM when viewed in the vSphere Client.

So, is there a save I need to do, or do I have to change the value in another fashion?

Thanks

Message was edited by: Ondit

I've gotten a bit further, looks like I need to use the CustomFieldsManager, but I don't know what to provide as Entity for the SetField method:

var mgr = new CustomFieldsManager(this.VimClient, myVM.VirtualMachine.MoRef);

mgr.SetField(???, key, value);

[jeffpatton]

old thread I know, hoping someone else lately has come across this. Ondit, I've gotten a bit further, but am at more or less the same place

ManagedEntity vmEntity = new ManagedEntity(vimClient, clonedVM.MoRef);            

CustomFieldsManager fieldManager = new CustomFieldsManager(vimClient, clonedVM.MoRef);           

//           

// One or more custom field names could be stored in the web.config and processed in some fashion           

//           

foreach (CustomFieldDef thisField in clonedVM.AvailableField)           

{               

if (thisField.Name.Equals("CreatedBy"))               

{                   

fieldManager.SetField(vmEntity.MoRef, thisField.Key, txtUsername.Text);               

}           

}

I saw some perl code that appeared to cast a vm as an entity, but doing a direct cast (ManagedEntity)clonedVM appears to make the method unhappy.

[jeffpatton]

Ondit

I have a working version now, hopefully you can figure out the perl version from my .net version.

CustomFieldsManager fieldManager = client.GetView(client.ServiceContent.CustomFieldsManager, null);

foreach (CustomFieldDef thisField in fieldManager.Field)
{

if (thisField.Name.Equals("CreatedBy"))

{

fieldManager.SetField(clonedVM.MoRef, thisField.Key, sUsername);

}

}

I start by instantiating a customfieldsmanager object (fieldManager) using the GetView method of the vimclient (client). GetView needs a moRef to get the thing you're after, so I pull in the client's ServiceContent.CustomFieldsManager which is a moRef. I don't recall where I saw this, but that was the piece that was eluding me. fieldManager has a SetField method, but when I was originally connecting to it, I was CREATING IT NEW, so it was always null. Once fieldManager was managing the customfields from vsphere I was able to iterate over them in the foreach loop. Then down inside I test to see if the field i'm currently on matches a field I know exists, and then I set it. In my case, CreatedBy is a string field, and sUsername is a string containing the username.

Hope this helps, this has really been bugging me for a while, I've wanted to include this functionality for a while now, but I've not been able to get it working properly.

Good Luck!