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

Applying the Open-Closed Principle

The open-closed principle is credited to Bertrand Meyer, after its appearance in his 1988 book, Object-Oriented Software Construction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-Oriented_Software_Construction). This book describes the following principles that we can apply to our software:

  • A type is open if it can be extended
  • A type is closed when it is available to other types

Suppose we have a class called Shape that has a method called area, which in turn calculates the area of the shape. We want to be able to add new shapes to our program without modifying the Shape class, so we make the Shape class open for extension.

To do this, we create a new class called Triangle that inherits from Shape and overrides the area method to calculate the area of a triangle. We can also create a Rectangle class and any other new shapes we want.

Now, whenever we need to calculate the area of a shape, we can simply create a new instance of the...