CSharp

Introduction

Similar to the Java generator and runtime support from ALFA , this Exporter generates CSharp representations of ALFA definitions.

The CSharp support has been built for .NET Core 2.1 or higher. If other versions are required, please contact info@schemarise.com or goto www.schemarise.com.

The CSharp generator is provided as part of the ‘ALFA Professional’ version of ALFA . Please contact us at info@schemarise.com or goto www.schemarise.com for an evaluation.

Usage Steps

• Similar to generating Java, CSharp is generated using the following commandline.

alfa -c -e csharp -o generated/csharp src

• The generated CSharp depends on a library Alfa.Net.Runtime which is made available as a NuGet package. Follow the steps below to download and install Alfa.Net.Runtime. On windows use %USERPROFILE% instead of $HOME. If curl command not available, download using the browser and use the nuget command.

curl -L --http1.1 https://github.com/alfa-lang/distributions/raw/master/downloads/Alfa.Net.Runtime.0.8.1-RC1.0.nupkg --output Alfa.Net.Runtime.0.8.1-RC1.0.nupkg
nuget add Alfa.Net.Runtime.0.8.1-RC1.0.nupkg  -Source $HOME/.nuget/packages/

• Once the NuGet package is installed, create a .csproj file and compile the generated code. Refer to the example below for contents of the csproj file. Save the contents into a Alfa.Demo.csproj file. The subdirectory generated/csharp will already contain the generated code from the previous step.

  <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
     <PropertyGroup>
         <OutputType>Library</OutputType>
         <AssemblyName>Alfa.Pro.Demo</AssemblyName>
         <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.1</TargetFramework>
         <VersionPrefix>0.8.1-RC1.0</VersionPrefix>
         <VersionSuffix></VersionSuffix>
     </PropertyGroup>
  
     <ItemGroup>
       <Folder Include="src\generated" />
       <Folder Include="src\main" />
     </ItemGroup>
  
     <ItemGroup>
       <PackageReference Include="Alfa.Net.Runtime" Version="0.8.1-RC1.0" />
     </ItemGroup>
  
  </Project>
  

• In the directory containing the .csproj file, run dotnet build. This will build the generated code and produce a dll. Congratulations! You have built your first ALFA .Net type library!

• If the .csproj is opened using an .NET IDE, you can proceed to write some sample code that uses the generated library. ..

  Given the ALFA definition below:

  record Club.Player {
   Name : string
   Age : int
   Average : double
   RankingByYear : map< int, int >
  }
  

  The following CSharp code can be written to run against the generated code.

  using System;
  
  using System.Collections.Generic;
  
  using alfa.rt;
  using Club;
  
  namespace Alfa.Pro.Demo
  {
     public class App
     {
         static void Main(string[] args)
         {
             var rankings = new Dictionary<int, int>{
                 { 2018, 1 },
                 { 2019, 3 }
             };
  
             // Use a builder to incrementally construct the object
             var builder = new Club.Player.Builder();
             builder.setAge(10).setName("Bob").setAverage(10.12).putAllRankingByYear(rankings);
             // Finalise and build immutable object
             var player1 = builder.build();
  
             // Round trip object <> JSON
             var json = Codec.toJson(player1);
             var decoded = Codec.fromJson<Player>(json);
  
             // Access field as a Property - will print "Bob"
             Console.WriteLine( decoded.Name );
         }
     }
  }