ZimLabs.TableCreator 3.0.0

ZimLabs.TableCreator

This library is not very special 😃 It takes a list of objects and creates an ASCII "table", markdown table or a CSV list. Very simple and straight forward.

Content

• Install
• Usage
• Known issues
• Changelog
  • Version 3.0.0
  • Version 2.1.1
  • Version 2.1.0
  • Version 2.0.2
  • Version 2.0.1
  • Version 2.0.0
  • Version 1.5.0

Install

PM > Install-Package ZimLabs.TableCreator

Usage

Attributes:

internal sealed class Person
{
    [Appearance(TextAlign = TextAlign.Right, Order = 1)]
    public int Id { get; set; }

    [Appearance(Name = "First name", Order = 3)]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [Appearance(Order = 2)]
    public string LastName { get; set; }

    [Appearance(Name = "E-Mail", Order = 4)]
    public string Mail { get; set; }

    [Appearance(Ignore = true)]
    public string Gender { get; set; }

    [Appearance(Name = "Job title")]
    public string JobTitle { get; set; }

    [Appearance(Format = "yyyy-MM-dd")]
    public DateTime Birthday { get; set; }
}

Note: If not all properties have an Order value, the following order is applied:

1. occurrence in the class
2. order according to Order value

Usage of the Create / Save methods:

var personList = CreateDummyList().ToList();

// Print the complete list
Console.WriteLine("Person List");
Console.WriteLine(personList.CreateTable());

// Save the person list
personList.SaveTable("PersonList.txt");

// Print a single person
var person = personList.FirstOrDefault();

Console.WriteLine("Single person");
Console.WriteLine("Value list");
Console.WriteLine(person.CreateValueList());

Console.WriteLine("Value table");
Console.WriteLine(person.CreateValueTable());

// Save the person (as value list)
person.SaveValue("FileName.txt");

// Save the person (as table)
person.SaveValueAsTable("FileName.txt");

Console.WriteLine("Done");
Console.ReadLine();

The result:

Person List
+-------------------------------+------------+----+-------------+------------+-------------------------------+
| Job title                     | Birthday   | Id | LastName    | First name | E-Mail                        |
+-------------------------------+------------+----+-------------+------------+-------------------------------+
| Environmental Tech            | 1968-03-26 |  1 | Giblin      | Tommy      | tgiblin0@amazon.co.uk         |
| Teacher                       | 1952-04-24 |  2 | Puden       | Sven       | spuden1@soundcloud.com        |
| VP Quality Control            | 1965-04-10 |  3 | Czaple      | Garvy      | gczaple2@com.com              |
| Pharmacist                    | 1986-07-23 |  4 | Mariotte    | Eryn       | emariotte3@issuu.com          |
| Senior Financial Analyst      | 1967-11-09 |  5 | Oiseau      | Zaccaria   | zoiseau4@huffingtonpost.com   |
+-------------------------------+------------+----+-------------+------------+-------------------------------+

Single person
Value list
- Job title.: Environmental Tech
- Birthday..: 26/03/1968 00:00:00
- Id........: 1
- LastName..: Giblin
- First name: Tommy
- E-Mail....: tgiblin0@amazon.co.uk

Value table
+------------+-----------------------+
| Key        | Value                 |
+------------+-----------------------+
| Job title  | Environmental Tech    |
| Birthday   | 26/03/1968 00:00:00   |
| Id         | 1                     |
| LastName   | Giblin                |
| First name | Tommy                 |
| E-Mail     | tgiblin0@amazon.co.uk |
+------------+-----------------------+

For more examples take a look at the demo project.

Known issues

Currently it's possible to call the methods for a single entry with a list:

// Wrong call
personList.CreateValueList();

I'll try to fix the bug in the next version (1.5).

Since I didn't find a solution to prevent calling the method for a single value, I included a check that throws an error when trying to call the method for a single value from a list.

If you call from a list a function, which was developed only for a single value, an NotSupportedException with the following message will be thrown:

The specified type is not supported by this method. Please choose "CreateTable" or "SaveTable" instead.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Changelog

Version 3.0.0

🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING CHANGE 🚨🚨🚨

Between the last version and this one the runtime environment has been changed! New runtime environment is .NET 9

Other changes:

• Code tidied up
• Property EncapsulateText added. If the value is set to true, every text value is automatically set in quotation marks, regardless of which attribute is set for the corresponding property.

IMPORTANT

Several methods have been given the obsolete attribute. These methods will be removed in the next version!

Why? The options have been moved to a separate class. This streamlines the actual code, as the other methods only functioned as "wrappers". The new options class also makes it easier to use, as you can see at a glance which options have been set.

Version 2.1.1

• Option addHeader addded, with which you can decide whether the CSV content should contain a header line.
• Added classes for the various options to improve clarity (TableCreateOptions and TableCreatorListOptions).
• Appearance attribute adjusted. It is now possible to specify whether the content of a property should be encapsulate in quotation marks.

Version 2.1.0

• Fixed some bugs:
  • Custom format was not used in some cases (DataTable functions)
  • Missing null check in the list functions
• Added .NET 8 support (multiple target frameworks). Now .NET 7 and .NET 8 are supported
• Minor changes under the hood (usage of the new C# 12 features)

Version 2.0.2

• Added missing api documentation

Version 2.0.1

• Fixed a bug in the DataTable CSV generator

Version 2.0.0

🚨🚨🚨 BREAKING CHANGE 🚨🚨🚨

Between the last version and this one the runtime environment has been changed! New runtime environment is .NET 7

Other changes:

• Added the support of DataTable

Version 1.5.0

Added check function to the following methods

• CreateValueTable
• SaveValue
• SaveValueAsTable

The function checks if the given value is a list or not. If the value is a list an exception (NotSupportedException) will be thrown.

For more information see Known issues.

I also removed the documentation for the classes, because the tool I use for that doesn't seem to cope with .NET Standard, so the documentation wasn't updated anymore.