Sometimes you want to create a descriptive type to better represent a concept such as an email (rather than a string) but what stops you is the effort in creating this type. Here is a quick snippet to allow you to quickly generate these types reliably.
What will we be generating?
What we are trying to generate is a class that ends up looking something like this.
public class LastName
{
string Value { get; }
public LastName(string value) { Value = value; }
public static implicit operator string(LastName c)
=> c.Value;
public static implicit operator LastName(string s)
=> new LastName(s);
public override string ToString() => Value;
public override int GetHashCode() => Value.GetHashCode();
public override bool Equals(object obj)
{
if (Value == null || obj == null)
return false;
if (obj.GetType() == typeof(string))
{
var otherString = obj as string;
return string.Equals(Value, otherString, StringComparison.Ordinal);
}
if (obj.GetType() == this.GetType())
{
string otherString = string.Format("{0}", obj);
return string.Equals(Value, otherString, StringComparison.Ordinal);
}
return false;
}
}
This class will implicitly convert between LastName and string and compares like a value type. So two different instances of the same last name will be equivalent.
Visual Studio Snippet
If you are using Resharper or another development productivity extension, creating snippets is fairly easy. In Visual Studio without a productivity extension it takes a little more effort but not much.
First you will need to create the snippet. Open up your favourite editor (I use Visual Studio Code) and create a file called impl.snippet and save it somewhere. You will be importing it into Visual Studio later so remember where you put it. Also be aware that it will actually be copied to C:\Users{user}\Documents\Visual Studio 2017\Code Snippets\Visual C#\My Code Snippets when you import it and the one you saved is not the one that Visual Studio uses. So if make changes to the original you will need to re-import it and if you edit the imported one it seems VS needs a restart.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<CodeSnippets
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/2005/CodeSnippet">
<CodeSnippet Format="1.0.0">
<Header>
<Title>Class with implicit string operator</Title>
<Author>Devon Burriss</Author>
<Description>Creates a class that can implicitly convert to and from string.</Description>
<Shortcut>impl</Shortcut>
</Header>
<Imports>
<Import>
<Namespace>System</Namespace>
</Import>
</Imports>
<Snippet>
<Declarations>
<Literal>
<ID>name</ID>
<ToolTip>Name of the class.</ToolTip>
<Default>MyImplicitType</Default>
</Literal>
</Declarations>
<Code Language="csharp">
<![CDATA[
public class $name$
{
string Value { get; }
public $name$(string value) { Value = value; }
public static implicit operator string($name$ c)
=> c.Value;
public static implicit operator $name$(string s)
=> new $name$(s);
public override string ToString() => Value;
public override int GetHashCode() => Value.GetHashCode();
public override bool Equals(object obj)
{
if (Value == null || obj == null)
return false;
if (obj.GetType() == typeof(string))
{
var otherString = obj as string;
return string.Equals(Value, otherString, StringComparison.Ordinal);
}
if (obj.GetType() == this.GetType())
{
string otherString = string.Format("{0}", obj);
return string.Equals(Value, otherString, StringComparison.Ordinal);
}
return false;
}
}
]]>
</Code>
</Snippet>
</CodeSnippet>
</CodeSnippets>
Xml file: impl.snippet
The <Header> element defines some generic information about the snippet. It is all self explanatory. I do want to just point out the <Shortcut> element. This is what you will edit if you want anything other than typing impl and then hit the Tab button to activate the snippet.
The interesting bit is the <Literal> element. It has an <ID> element which is used in the snippet template to be the replacement variable. So when you hit Tab you can type a name for the class and it will be inserted into all the relevant places.
Import into Visual Studio
Once you have created your snippet and saved it somewhere, go to Visual Studio (if that isn't what you used to create the snippet).
- Navigate to Tool > Code Snippets Manager... (or press Ctrl+K, Ctrl+B).
- Click Import... (you can choose C# language to be safe but it seems to pick it up from the snippet)
- Browse to the impl.snippet file you created earlier an click Open
- Make sure My Coded Snippets is selected and click Finish
And you are done. Now to create the class you can type impl in any .cs file and hit Tab and it will generate the class
Conclusion
If you find yourself creating repetitive classes, or avoiding to create classes because they are repetitive. Consider automating it to a degree by using a snippet.