Dogma

Dogma is a simple C# => TypeScript module interface declaration generator. Synchronize your dogmas!

Why?

There are a bunch of other C# to TypeScript tools out there, like Reinforced.Typings and NJsonSchema, but I couldn't find any that would support:

• a. Transforming the classes and interfaces to just TypeScript interfaces.
• b. Add an export statement on those TypeScript interfaces.
• c. Export those interfaces from a declared module.
• d. Serialize enums to TypeScript's string literal type, e.g. "EnumValue1" | "EnumValue2".

Almost every tool I've used would either turn my C# pocos to a class with a ton of extra cruft and methods added, wouldn't export the interfaces, or wouldn't declare a module.

Usage

Dogma will search whatever Assembly you give it for any classes that are decorated with the [ToTypeScript] attribute. It will then iterate through all discovered classes, any subclasses, and any base classes or objects, turning them into TypeScript interfaces.

[ToTypeScript("my-module")]
public class Foo : Bar
{
    [JsonProperty("hello")]
    public string Hello { get; set; }
}

public class Bar
{
    [JsonProperty("world")]
    public bool World { get; set; }
}

Once you've got your pocos ready to convert, pass in the Assembly you want to search to Dogma.Generator.GenerateFiles, and write the returned modules to .d.ts files:

Assembly assembly = MethodToGetMyAssembly();
var modules = Dogma.Generator.GenerateModules(assembly);

foreach (var module in modules)
{
    System.IO.Files.WriteAllText($"path/to/{module.ModuleName}.generated.d.ts", file.Code);
}

The example class above will generate the following TypeScript:

declare module "my-module" {
    export interface Foo extends Bar {
        hello: string;
    }

    export interface Bar {
        world: boolean;
    }
}

Getting the Assembly

Dogma needs a reference to the Assembly you're searching, which can be sort-of difficult when you're running DotNet Core. The easiest way I've found to load an Assembly from a DotNet Core console project is to install the Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyModel package and manually load your Assembly.

For example, in the Dogma.Tests project, I load the Assembly like this:

using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyModel;

var assemblyName = DependencyContext.Default
    .GetDefaultAssemblyNames()
    .Where(a => a.Name == "Dogma.Tests")
    .First();
var assembly = Assembly.Load(assemblyName);

Make sure you replace the Dogma.Tests string with the name of your assembly. In most cases that's just the name of your project, but otherwise it will be specified in the <AssemblyName>myAssemblyName</AssemblyName> element in your .csproj file.

Note that if you're loading an external project assembly and you get a System.Reflection.ReflectionTypeLoadException thrown, you'll need to set Copy Local to yes for the referenced project in Visual Studio. Alternatively, you can edit the master project's .csproj file and mark the project reference as private:

<ProjectReference Include="..\path\to\project.csproj">
  <Private>true</Private>
</ProjectReference>

Roadmap

• Allow overriding a property type with a custom attribute.
• Allow overriding a property type with a custom attribute that can specify a module to import the type from.
• Handle enums.
• If a discovered type has it's own module attribute, move it out of the current module and import it instead.
• Use [JsonProperty] attribute to determine the name of a property.
• Mark a property with a PartialAttribute, which converts the type to Partial<TypeName>.
• Add a complementary standalone binary or dotnet tool to run this from the command line.
• Handle Nullable properties.
• Handle generic classes and interfaces.