Impworks.Utils

A collection of useful helper methods.

Installation

To install, use the following Package Manager command:

PM> Install-Package Impworks.Utils

Usage

Add the using directive with the required namespace to the top of the file where you intend to use a helper method.

If you work with Resharper, it will suggest adding the namespace automatically.

The methods

The package provides the following methods, split into logical parts.

• Strings

  Parsing to various types (primitives supported by default):

  "123".Parse<int>() // 123
  "hello".TryParse<int?>() // null
  "12345".TryParse<MyType>(MyParseFunc) // MyType
  "1,2,test,3".TryParseList<int>() // 1, 2, 3
  "1;2;test;3".TryParseList<int>(separator: ";") // 1, 2, 3
  "1".TryParse<MyEnum?>(); // MyEnum or null

  Coalesce:

  StringHelper.Coalesce(null, "", "test") // test

  Ends/starts with substring:

  "hello world".StartsWithPart("hello test", 5) // true
  "a test".EndsWithPart("b TEST", 4, ignoreCase: true) // true

  Transliteration from Russian:

  StringHelper.Transliterate("Привет мир", "_") // "Privet_mir"

  string.Join as extension:

  new [] { 1, 2, 3 }.JoinString(", ") // "1, 2, 3"

• Enumerable

  Distinct by projection:

  new [] { 1, 2, 3 }.DistinctBy(x => x % 2) // 1, 2

  Conditional ordering:

  new [] { 4, 6, 1 }.OrderBy(x => x, isDescending) // true => 6, 4, 1, false => 1, 4, 6
  new [] { obj1, obj2 }.OrderBy("FieldA.FieldB", isDescending) // orders by field or path

  Partitioning:

  new [] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 }.PartitionBySize(2) // [1, 2], [3, 4], [5, 6]
  new [] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 }.PartitionByCount(2) => [1, 2, 3], [4, 5, 6]

  Recursive selection and application:

  new [] { treeRoot }.SelectRecursively(x => x.Children) // selects all children in a flat list
  new [] { treeRoot }.ApplyRecursively(x => x.Children, x => x.Value = 1) // sets Value = 1 on all children

  Destructuring sequences:

  var (a, b) = new [] { 1, 2, 3 }.First2(); // a = 1, b = 2
  var (c, d, e, f) = new [] { "foo", "bar" }.First4OrDefault(); // e, f = null

• Expressions

  Expression combinations (useful for LINQ):

  ExprHelper.And<Foo>(x => x.A == 1, x => x.B == 2) // x => x.A == 1 && x.B == 2
  ExprHelper.Or<Foo>(x => x.A == 1, x => x.B == 2) // x => x.A == 1 || x.B == 2

  Partial application (for Func and Action up to 8 arguments):

  ExprHelper.Apply((int x, int y) => x + y, 10) // Expr for (int x) => x + 10

• Enums

  Captions from Description attribute:

  enum Language
  {
      [Description("C#")] CSharp,
      [Description("C++")] CPlusPlus
  }
  EnumHelper.GetEnumDescriptions<Language>() // { Language.CSharp = "C#", Language.CPlusPlus = "C++" }

  Case-insensitive IsDefined:

  EnumHelper.IsDefined<Language>("csharp") // true

• Exceptions

  Fluent exception ignoring (with async versions too):

  Try.Do(() => SomeStuff()); // does not throw
  Try.Get(() => GetAnInt()) // returns 0 on exception
  Try.Get(() => GetAnInt(), 123) // returns 123 on exception

• Comparisons

  Min and Max for all IComparable's:

  CompareHelper.Min("b", "a", "c") // "a"
  CompareHelper.Max(DateTime.Parse("2024-01-01"), DateTime.Parse("2023-02-01")) // 2024-01-01

• Random

  Random values:

  RandomHelper.Int(1, 100) // 42
  RandomHelper.Float() // 0.1337
  RandomHelper.Sign() // -1 or 1
  RandomHelper.DoubleNormal() // normal distribution around 0.5 limited to 0..1

  Random picks:

  RandomHelper.Pick(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) // 4
  RandomHelper.PickWeighted(new [] { "a", "test", "blablabla" }, x => x.Length) // likely "blablabla"
  new [] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 }.PickRandom() // optionally accepts a weight function too

  Shuffle:

  new [] { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 }.Shuffle() // something like 4, 2, 1, 5, 3
  

• Dictionary

  Value retrieval:

  var dict = new Dictionary<string, int> { ["hello"] = 1, ["world"] = 2 };
  dict.TryGetValue("hello") // 1
  dict.TryGetValue("test") // 0
  dict.TryGetValue("foo", null, "hello") // 1
  dict.TryGetNullableValue("test") // null

• Urls

  URL parts combination:

  UrlHelper.Combine("http://a.com/foo", "bar/", "/test") // http://a.com/foo/bar/test

  Query generation from an object (accepts anonymous objects, Dictionary and JObject):

  UrlHelper.GetQuery(new { A = 1, B = "hello" }) // "A=1&B=hello"
  UrlHelper.GetQuery(new { A = new [] { 1, 2, 3 } }) // "A=1&A=2&A=3"

• Tasks (.NET Standard 2.0 only)

  Parallel awaiting (strong typing, up to 7 values):

  var (i, str) = await TaskHelper.GetAll(
      GetIntAsync(),
      GetStringAsync()
  );

  Async ID-based locker:

  var locker = new Locker<int>();
  using(await locker.AcquireAsync(123))
      // do stuff

• XML

  Attributes:

  var xml = XElement.Parse(@"<test a=""1337"" b=""true"" />");
  xml.Attr("a") // "1337"
  xml.ParseAttr<int>("a") // 1337
  xml.ParseAttr<bool>("b") // true
  xml.TryParseAttr<bool?>("a") // null

  Less verbose serialization with a cleaner resulting XML:

  var obj = new MyObject { Foo = "hello", Bar = (int?) null };
  XmlHelper.Serialize(obj) // <MyObject><Foo>Hello</Foo><Bar /></MyObject>
  XmlHelper.Serialize(obj, clean: false); // lots of junk: xml declaration, namespaces, nil's
  XmlHelper.Deserialize<MyObject>("...") // gets it back