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.2.5.1.nupkg --output Alfa.Net.Runtime.0.8.1-RC1.0.nupkg
nuget add Alfa.Net.Runtime.2.1.0.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>2.1.0</VersionPrefix>
         <VersionSuffix></VersionSuffix>
     </PropertyGroup>
  
     <ItemGroup>
       <Folder Include="src\generated" />
       <Folder Include="src\main" />
     </ItemGroup>
  
     <ItemGroup>
       <PackageReference Include="Alfa.Net.Runtime" Version="2.1.0" />
     </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 );
         }
     }
  }