PolyType 0.16.1

PolyType

Contains a port of the TypeShape F# library, adapted to patterns and idioms available in C#. It provides a type model that facilitates development of high-performance datatype-generic components such as serializers, loggers, transformers and validators. At its core, the programming model employs a variation on the visitor pattern that enables strongly-typed traversal of arbitrary type graphs: it can be used to generate object traversal algorithms that incur zero allocation cost. See the project website for additional guides and API documentation.

The project includes two shape model providers: one reflection derived and one source generated. It follows that any datatype-generic application built on top of the shape model gets trim safety/NativeAOT support for free once it targets source generated models.

Using the library

Users can extract the shape model for a given type either using the built-in source generator:

ITypeShape<MyPoco> shape = TypeShapeProvider.Resolve<MyPoco>();

[GenerateShape] // Auto-generates a static abstract factory for ITypeShape<MyPoco>
public partial record MyPoco(string x, string y);

For types not accessible in the current compilation, the implementation can be generated using a separate witness type:

ITypeShape<MyPoco[]> shape = TypeShapeProvider.Resolve<MyPoco[], Witness>();
ITypeShape<MyPoco[][]> shape = TypeShapeProvider.Resolve<MyPoco[][], Witness>();

// Generates factories for both ITypeShape<MyPoco[]> and ITypeShape<MyPoco[][]>
[GenerateShape<MyPoco[]>]
[GenerateShape<MyPoco[][]>]
public partial class Witness;

The library also provides a reflection-based provider:

using PolyType.ReflectionProvider;

ITypeShape<MyPoco> shape = ReflectionTypeShapeProvider.Default.GetShape<MyPoco>();
public record MyPoco(string x, string y);

In both cases the providers will generate a strongly typed datatype model for MyPoco. Models for types can be fed into datatype-generic consumers that can be declared using PolyType's visitor pattern.

Example: Writing a datatype-generic counter

The simplest possible example of a datatype-generic programming is counting the number of nodes that exist in a given object graph. This can be implemented by extending the TypeShapeVisitor class:

public sealed partial class CounterVisitor : TypeShapeVisitor
{
    // For the sake of simplicity, ignore collection types and just focus on properties/fields.
    public override object? VisitObject<T>(IObjectTypeShape<T> objectShape, object? state)
    {
        // Recursively generate counters for each individual property/field:
        Func<T, int>[] propertyCounters = objectShape.GetProperties()
            .Where(prop => prop.HasGetter)
            .Select(prop => (Func<T, int>)prop.Accept(this)!)
            .ToArray();

        // Compose into a counter for the current type.
        return new Func<T?, int>(value =>
        {
            if (value is null)
                return 0;

            int count = 1; // the current node itself
            foreach (Func<T, int> propertyCounter in propertyCounters)
                count += propertyCounter(value);

            return count;
        });
    }

    public override object? VisitProperty<TDeclaringType, TPropertyType>(IPropertyShape<TDeclaringType, TPropertyType> propertyShape, object? state)
    {
        Getter<TDeclaringType, TPropertyType> getter = propertyShape.GetGetter(); // extract the getter delegate
        var propertyTypeCounter = (Func<TPropertyType, int>)propertyShape.PropertyType.Accept(this)!; // extract the counter for the property type
        return new Func<TDeclaringType, int>(obj => propertyTypeCounter(getter(ref obj))); // compose to a property-specific counter
    }
}

We can now define a counter factory using the visitor:

public static class Counter
{
    private readonly static CounterVisitor s_visitor = new();

    public static Func<T?, int> CreateCounter<T>() where T : IShapeable<T>
    {
        ITypeShape<T> typeShape = T.GetShape();
        return (Func<T?, int>)typeShape.Accept(s_visitor)!;
    }
}

That we can then apply to the shape of our POCO like so:

Func<MyPoco?, int> pocoCounter = Counter.CreateCounter<MyPoco>();

[GenerateShape]
public partial record MyPoco(string? x, string? y);

In essence, PolyType uses the visitor to fold a strongly typed Func<MyPoco?, int> counter delegate, but the delegate itself doesn't depend on the visitor once invoked: it only defines a chain of strongly typed delegate invocations that are cheap to invoke once constructed:

pocoCounter(new MyPoco("x", "y")); // 3
pocoCounter(new MyPoco("x", null)); // 2
pocoCounter(new MyPoco(null, null)); // 1
pocoCounter(null); // 0

For more details, please consult the README file at the project page.