Outputting C# aliases (int, etc) instead of CLR types (Int32, etc) using CodeDom / CSharpCodeProvider

Question

When generating C# code using CodeDom / CSharpCodeProvider, is it possible to force the output to use C# aliases instead of CLR types where possible?

I am currently parsing the resulting C# code and replacing CLR types with their aliases, but I would like to find out if it is possible to do this during code generation.

CodeDom provides no option to alter the text it emits. Unless you write your own provider or post-process the text. — Hans Passant, Aug 17 '12 at 21:59
what is your goal? what for do you perform this? CodeDomProvider is for generating assemblies, in both cases resuls are equal — abatishchev, Aug 18 '12 at 18:54
The case where using CLR types is a problem is when declaring an enum with a base type. For example, the generated code is "enum : UInt32" instead of "enum : uint". — Marc Newlin, Aug 18 '12 at 20:52

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 05 '12 at 05:32

Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider by default generates code with C# aliases.

Example:

        CodeCompileUnit compileUnit = new CodeCompileUnit();
        CodeNamespace sampleNamespace = new CodeNamespace("Sample");

        CodeTypeDeclaration sampleClass = new CodeTypeDeclaration("SampleClass");
        sampleClass.IsClass = true;
        sampleClass.Members.Add(new CodeMemberField(typeof(Int32), "_sampleField"));

        CodeMemberProperty prop = new CodeMemberProperty();
        prop.Attributes = MemberAttributes.Public | MemberAttributes.Final;
        prop.Name = "SampleProp";
        prop.HasGet = true;
        prop.Type = new CodeTypeReference(typeof(System.Int32));
        prop.GetStatements.Add(new CodeMethodReturnStatement(
    new CodeFieldReferenceExpression(
    new CodeThisReferenceExpression(), "_sampleField")));

        sampleClass.Members.Add(prop);
        sampleNamespace.Types.Add(sampleClass);
        compileUnit.Namespaces.Add(sampleNamespace);

        using (var fileStream = new StreamWriter(File.Create("outputfile.cs")))
        {
            var provider = new Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider();

            provider.GenerateCodeFromCompileUnit(compileUnit, fileStream, null);
        }

Will generate:

namespace Sample {

    public class SampleClass {

        private int _sampleField;

        public int SampleProp {
            get {
                return this._sampleField;
            }
        }
    }
}

As you can see, although I used typeof(Int32), it converted it to "int". (Int64 it converts to "long" etc.)

Outputting C# aliases (int, etc) instead of CLR types (Int32, etc) using CodeDom / CSharpCodeProvider

1 Answers1