Introduction to BuilderHacker

What is BuilderHacker?

BuilderHacker is a modern .NET library that provides fluent, type-safe builders for constructing complex objects with ease. It offers two complementary approaches:

  1. Source Generation (Compile-time) - For high performance with .NET 6+
  2. Reflection-based Runtime (EntityBuilder) - For universal compatibility

Why Use Builders?

Builders solve the common challenges of object construction:

  • Immutable objects - Build objects that cannot be modified after creation
  • Complex initialization - Fluent API makes building objects readable and maintainable
  • Default values - Builders can manage sensible defaults elegantly
  • Type safety - Compile-time checking ensures correct usage

Key Features

✨ Generates fluent builders from a single [GenerateBuilderHacker] attribute

🔒 Supports private members - Works with private fields and private setters

🎯 Handles inheritance - Traverses and includes inherited instance members

🔄 Dual approach - Choose source generation or runtime reflection

⚡ Zero-cost - Generated source code produces no reflection overhead

How It Works

[GenerateBuilderHacker]
public partial class User
{
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Age { get; set; }
    public string Email { get; set; }
}

// Generated at compile-time - no reflection!
// Default generated standalone builder (Create() by default):
var user = UserBuilder.Create()
    .Name("Alice")
    .Age(30)
    .Email("alice@example.com")
    .Build();

// If you used `[GenerateBuilderHacker(true)]` (partial-mode), you can use:
// var user = User.Builder().Name(...).Age(...).Build();

Runtime Approach (Works Everywhere)

var user = EntityBuilder<User>.Create()
    .Set(u => u.Name, "Alice")
    .Set(u => u.Age, 30)
    .Set(u => u.Email, "alice@example.com")
    .Build();

NuGet Packages

Available on NuGet:

Project Structure

Project Package ID Purpose Framework
BuilderHacker.Abstraction SAProduction.BuilderHacker.Abstraction Shared attributes and interfaces netstandard2.0
BuilderHacker.Core SAProduction.BuilderHacker.Core Runtime EntityBuilder implementation netstandard2.0
BuilderHacker.Generator SAProduction.BuilderHacker.Generator Incremental source generator netstandard2.0
BuilderHacker.Console (Sample only) Example application demonstrating usage net10.0

Next Steps

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