Improve generators

[akovanev]

I've just started working on the DG 1.6.0. The goal is to add new generators and improve the existing ones.

The new ones will be Decimal, Phone, Address, ByteArray... (please fill free to extend the list).

The existing one which, in my opinion, requires improvement is String. As of now, a new string is constructed from the characters explicitly listed in the pattern value.

.Property(x => x.NumberPlate).Pattern("ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789")

I find it quite inconvenient.

In general, I have two options.

• Allow regex expressions or
• Add a limited set of instructions like $$a-z, $$0-9, $$A-s2-8, $$digits, $$alpha and so on.

For the regex I can play with Fare. That implies that I will have to add this dependency to DG and, at the same time, solve the ambiguity between the generated output and the already existing DG attributes dealing with the length and spaces.

On the other hand, the limited set may look like reinventing the wheel. I already had this feeling when I designed the json format for DG input, similar but not the same as known specifications.

Will it be a trade-off to combine both? Lets say, I will update the StringGenerator with a few very common things and create a new StringRegGenerator, which will live within the separate Akov.DataGenerator.Extensions package.