util

Last post I showed a cool way to parse strings into typed objects. In this one, I want to show the opposite. How to build strings using a template and an object. The idea is to use a template like {BirthDate:D} My name is {FirstName} {LastName} and I'm cool. and an object with properties BirthDate, FirstName and LastName to fill in the placeholder values and apply optional formatting. There are several uses for a utility like this but my favorite use is templated email messages....

A little while ago, I had to build a desktop app that received input from devices which I had no control of. Although each implementation had similar requirements, the devices connected to the app were slightly different and so were the inputs received from them. I’ve looked for other similar implementations and found that some people implemented device specific parsers. Furthermore, they used configuration to select the correct parser. I think there is at least one issue with this approach: any change to the known inputs would require the application to change as well....