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

An introduction to IL and Reflection.Emit

In Chapter 2, Metaprogramming Concepts, we touched on what the C# compiler turns your code into. IL, short for Intermediate Language, is a representation of instructions the .NET runtime understands and translates to CPU instructions for the target CPU your code is running on.

Since the .NET runtime operates dynamically on your code in this manner, it means that it is not a too far a jump to conclude that you should be able to generate code as your program executes. And luckily, that is the case. The .NET APIs include a whole namespace dedicated to generating code – System.Reflection.Emit.

With the Emit APIs, you can go and create any constructs you want from scratch, introduce new types that do not exist in any source code, or create new types that inherit from other types and add new capabilities.

For all the different types of artifacts, you can create class, method, properties, and more. There are specific builder types...