CardboardBox.Setup 1.0.8

CardboardBox.Setup

Helpful dependency injection and console application related extensions and features

Installation

You can install the nuget package within Visual Studio. It targets .net 6.0 to take advantage of most of the new features within C# and .net

PM> Install-Package CardboardBox.Setup

Setup

The package is split into 2 primary parts; Dependency Injection extensions and a command line verb parser / runner.

Dependency Injection Extensions

Configuration Extensions:

Here are a collection of useful configuration extensions I use frequently.

using CardboardBox;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;

//Registers a new configuration object with the service collection
new ServiceCollection()
	.AddConfig(c => {
		//Adds the "appsettings.json" file to the configuration object
		//This method supports xml, json, and ini files.
		c.AddFile("appsettings.json", optional: false, reloadOnChange: true);

		//This is short hand for the above (this is mostly a personal preference of mine)
		c.AddAppSettings();
	});

//You can also get the builder IConfiguration object out of the register.
new ServiceCollection()
	.AddConfig(c => {
		...
	}, out IConfiguration config);


//Once you have the IConfiguration object, you can use the binding extensions to get specific config objects out:
var myOptions = config.Bind<MyOptionsClass>();

//You can also bind to pre-created objects too
var myOptions = new MyOptionsClass();
config.BindInstance(myOptions);

//Both of the above binding methods also allow for you to specify a section of the configuration file to bind against
var mySubOptions = config.Bind<MySubOptionsClass>("my:sub:options");

Logging Extensions:

I personally think Serilog is the best logging system for C#. I used to use nLog, but it was a bit cumbersome to setup, so I made the switch.

using CardboardBox;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;

//Register Serilog using my personal preference for logging methods:
//This registers the File and Console sinks. The file sink has a rolling interval of Hourly, and outputs to the "logs/logs.txt" path.
new ServiceCollection().AddSerilog();

//You can also configuration serilog yourself
new ServiceCollection()
	.AddSerilog(c => {
		c.WriteTo.File(Path.Combine("some-logs", "my-super-log.txt"), rollingInterval: RollingInterval.Minute);
	});

Command Line Verb Parser / Runner

This is a helpful utility that lets you register verbs that can be trigger via specific command line arguments. These are useful for creating helpful CLI utilities, as I often do when working on big projects and need things like migrations, or test functions for things.

It utilizes CommandLineParser under the hood and supports pretty much everything they do when it comes to verbs.

First you will need to create a verb handler:

using CardboardBox;
using CommandLine;

namespace MySuperUtility 
{
	//This class represents the command line options from CommandLineParser
	[Verb("echo", isDefault: true, HelpText = "This echos the given message back to you")]
	public class EchoOptions 
	{
		[Option('u', "uppercase", Default = false, HelpText = "Whether or not to upper case everything")]
		public bool Uppercase { get; set; } = false;

		[Value(0, Required = true, HelpText = "The message that is echoed back")]
		public string Message { get; set; } = string.Empty;
	}

	//This class is what actually handles running the command
	public class EchoVerb : IVerb<EchoOptions> //This interface is important, otherwise the register won't be able to find your command
	{
		//This is the method that gets run when the verb is run
		public Task<int> Run(EchoVerbOptions options)
		{
			var msg = options.Message;
			if (options.Uppercase)
				msg = msg.ToUpper();

			Console.WriteLine(msg);
			return Task.FromResult(0);
		}
	}
}

Note: Out of the box, all IVerb instances support dependency injection, and their registration with the Service Collection is handled automatically!

Next you will need to register the verb with the register

using CardboardBox;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using MySuperUtility;

return await new ServiceCollection()
	.AddSerilog() //This ensures we get any warnings from the CLI system. Feel free to register any ILogger though.
	.Cli(c => 
	{
		//This tells the application about the verb and it's options, you can register as many of these as you want.
		c.Add<EchoVerb, EchoOptions>();
	});