For-Loop

[SeriousM]

Hi,

I'm searching for a formatting library that is easy to read/write and can do exactly what yours can, at least it looks like that.

Some Questions:

1. are dynamic objects supported
2. is the case important -> TEst == teST?
3. Can I write an extension to support loops like {#for Items}{Name}{#forend}

Thanks for this library!!

Cheers!

[scottrippey]

Thanks for your feedback!

1. I created this library before -.NET 4.0, so I didn't include dynamic support. However, it should be easy to add support; take a look at the DictionarySource extension for a good example.
2. The Reflection feature is case-sensitive. It could probably be modified to be case-insensitive. Or, since Dictionary is supported, you could create a case-insensitive Dictionary to hold your values, and it would work just fine.
3. There is built-in support for "list formatting", which might suit your case. It's intentionally simple, but supports nesting, so it's pretty useful. https://github.com/scottrippey/SmartFormat.NET/wiki#list-formatting

If you create a DynamicSource (for 1), I'd love to include it here, so let me know.

[SeriousM]

Hi, the list formatting is too less for my needs...

My template would look like this:

<catalog itemcount="{Items.Count}">
{for Items}
<item name="{Name}" price="{Price:c}" />
{/for}
</catalog>

This is just an example but shows what I need to achieve. Can I achieve that by preprocessing the template first? An index number would be cool but is not necessary.

Cheers and thanks!

[scottrippey]

You can achieve what you wanted by using nested placeholders:

<catalog itemcount="{Items.Count}">
{Items:
    <item name="{Name}" price="{Price:c}" />
    And yes, you can also use {Index}
}
</catalog>

Everything inside the {Items:*} placeholder will be repeated for each item.

[SeriousM]

Wow, thats awesome! I didn't know that I can write the "loop" over multiple lines!

Regarding the case-sensitive thing: did you know that you can create a case-insensitive dictionary like that: new Dictionary<string, object>(StringComparer.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)

The other way around that problem could be to use the DataBinder.Eval function described here (which I'm using at the moment): http://james.newtonking.com/archive/2008/03/29/formatwith-2-0-string-formatting-with-named-variables.aspx

Is there a way to support that natively by your library?

[scottrippey]

Re: The case-insensitive dictionary is what I was suggesting for # 2 ... that's probably the easiest built-in way for doing case-insensitive values.

Re: DataBinder.Eval - I would be hesitant to replace the current ReflectionSource.cs with something that used DataBinder ... mostly because I like the explicit control with Reflection, and I want to keep this lightweight. Also, I didn't want to create a dependency on the System.Web.UI namespace. So that's why I decided to write a custom Reflection-based evaluator. Anyway, I think (but I'm not certain) that Reflection has the ability to be case-insensitive, but I didn't implement it that way. It might be a nice feature to default to case-insensitive.

[SeriousM]

I have good news for you! The method Type.GetMember(string) you're using can have a flag to ignore the case: this.GetType().GetMember("name of the member", System.Reflection.MemberTypes.All, System.Reflection.BindingFlags.IgnoreCase); Could you tell me how to implement that / could you implement it because you're knowing the system better than me?

Cheers!

[scottrippey]

@SeriousM Good find ... that's probably the best solution.

The bad news, though, is that I'm unable to implement that change right now ... I haven't been working in .NET for a while now, and I don't have my dev environment set up. This sounds like a simple change, but I'd want to create Unit Tests for it and everything.

So, I'm not sure how "open-source savvy" you are, but if you'd like to contribute to this project, I'd be happy to pull in your change request.

[SeriousM]

I'm very open-sourcy ;) As you may have recognized I forked your repo already.

I will do my best to bring this change into the code. Btw: how do you like to handle the default values, is there a configuration object somewhere?

[scottrippey]

No, but I'm open to suggestions. The use-case for this code was so basic, that I've always used the default options. But it would be a good idea to support configuration for options like case-sensitivity, or to configure the list of default extensions, etc.

[SeriousM]

Ok, I will change the code over the weekend including:

• VS2012 solution
• Dynamic Support
• A configuration object for Default settings
  • The Default setting for the case-sensitive will be "case insensitive"

can i submit these changes then as one pull request or do you want to have multiple ones which makes the process slower?

Cheers

[SeriousM]

ok, I changed already some code. you can have a look at it if you like :) https://github.com/SeriousM/SmartFormat.NET/compare/2a67ecf2e024c1cd2db10b31d9ce4dfceec24919...HEAD

[linudaar]

great job! looking forward to seeing the case insensitivity ;-)

[SeriousM]

Alright, the pull request is created: https://github.com/scottrippey/SmartFormat.NET/pull/11

[SeriousM]

I'll close this one, pull request is enough :)