Book Image

Metaprogramming in C#

By : Einar Ingebrigtsen
Book Image

Metaprogramming in C#

By: Einar Ingebrigtsen

Overview of this book

Metaprogramming is an advanced technique that helps developers to automate repetitive tasks, generate scalable code, and enhance productivity in software development. Metaprogramming in C# is a comprehensive guide that will help you reap the full potential of metaprogramming in .NET runtime. You’ll start by learning about the .NET runtime environment and how you can use it to become a more productive developer. You'll learn how to infer types using reflection, use attributes, and create dynamic proxies. You’ll also explore the use of expressions to create and execute code and how to take advantage of Dynamic Language Runtime. But that's not all! You’ll also learn to go beyond inheritance and use method signature conventions to create easily maintainable code. Finally, you’ll dive into the world of compiler magic with Roslyn, where you'll discover how to use Roslyn to generate code, perform static code analysis, and write your own compiler extensions. By the end of this book, you’ll have a deep understanding of metaprogramming concepts and how to apply them to your C# code. You’ll be able to think about types, use attributes and expressions to generate code, and apply crosscutting concerns to improve code quality.
Table of Contents (25 chapters)
1
Part 1:Why Metaprogramming?
5
Part 2:Leveraging the Runtime
12
Part 3:Increasing Productivity, Consistency, and Quality
18
Part 4:Compiler Magic Using Roslyn

Creating DynamicObject and providing metadata

Sometimes, you don’t have the luxury of having your types represented in code. This could be if you’re calling an external API of some sort, be it a REST API, SOAP service, or similar. However, the third party you’re calling might have a representation of the type in a standard format, such as a WSDL or JSON schema.

Even though dynamic objects can be very flexible, in the real world the shape of data tends to be stricter. So, instead of using ExpandoObject for everything, you could represent these types with a custom dynamic object that gets its metadata from a well-known format. It’s very common today to use JSON as a data carrier, and it’s also common to represent the shape of data by leveraging JSON schemas. Let’s look at how that could be a provider of metadata.

Building a JSON schema type

Start by creating a folder called Chapter9. Change into this folder in your command-line interface...