Installation

A nuget is available, just run the following command in the Package Manager Console:

Install-Package Sinbadsoft.Lib.Model

#Simple zero-config convention-based object to object mapper.

This library uses reflection to copy prperties of object of type A to object of type B based on property name. Example:

UserDto userDto = /* Load from db or any other source ... */ repo.LoadUser();
User user = userDto.CopyTo<User>()

In this example, a new instance of User is created. A copy to an existing instance is also possible:

userDto.CopyTo(user);

Here is an example User and UserDto definitions:

public class User
{
    public Guid UniqueId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public UserRole Role { get; set; }
    public enum UserRole { User, Editor, Admin }
}

public class UserDto
{
    public byte[] UniqueId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Role { get; set; }
}

You can notice that the mapper has automatically converted byte[] to Guid and int to UserRole. When the target property type is not assignable from the source target property, the mapper attempts to perform the following conversions:

• string and byte[] to/from Guid
• string to/from enum
• integral types (SByte, Int16, Int32, Int64, Byte, UInt16, UInt32, or UInt64) to/from enum; even if the integral type is different from the underlying type of the enum.
• string to/from TimeSpan
• string to/from DateTime
• struct T to/from Nullable<T>
• If none of the above rule is applicable, and target type is string, Convert.ToString is used.
• If none of the above rules is applicable, Convert.ChangeType is used.

The types IDictionary<>, IDictionary, ExpandoObject and NameValueCollection are treated in a special way when used as source type. Instead of copying the properties of these hashes, their keys and values are used instead. Example:

User user = new Dictionary<string, object>
    {
        { "UniqueId", "21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D" },
        { "Name", "Fred" },
        { "Role", 1 }
    }.CopyTo<User>();

ToExpando

The library provides a utility to copy any object to an ExpandoObject. In the example below, userExpando object have exactly the same properties of the soruce user object.

dynamic userExpando = user.ToExpando();

The resulting expando object can be sliced using a black list:

// userExpando dosen't contain property Role
userExpando = user.ToExpando(blacklist: new[] { "Role" });

or a white list:

// userExpando contains only Name and Role properties, nothing else
userExpando = user.ToExpando(whitelist: new[] { "Name", "Role" });

A different target type can be specified for a given source property. In the following example, the created expando has UniqueId property of type byte[], converted form the original UniqueId property of type Guid.

userExpando = user.ToExpando(new { UniqueId = typeof(byte[]) });

Related projects

• automapper

License

Copyright 2012-2015 Sinbadsoft.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0.