ObjectDumper.NET

ObjectDumper is a utility which aims to serialize C# objects to string for debugging and logging purposes.

Download and Install ObjectDumper.NET

This library is available on NuGet: https://www.nuget.org/packages/ObjectDumper.NET/ Use the following command to install ObjectDumper using NuGet package manager console:

PM> Install-Package ObjectDumper.NET

You can use this library in any .NET project which is compatible to PCL (e.g. Xamarin Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows Store, Universal Apps, etc.)

The Purpose of ObjectDumper

Serialization, the process of converting a complex object to a machine-readable or over-the-wire transmittable string, is a technique often used in software engineering. A well-known serializer is Newtonsoft.JSON which serializes .NET objects to the data representation format JSON.

ObjectDumper.NET provides two excellent ways to visualize in-memory .NET objects:

• DumpStyle.Console: serialize objects to human-readable strings, often used to write complex C# objects to log files.
• DumpStyle.CSharp: serialize objects to C# initializer code, which can be used to compile a C# object again.

API Usage

Dumping C# Objects to Console.WriteLine

The following sample program uses DumpStyle.Console to write C# objects to the console output:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var persons = new List<Person>
    {
        new Person { Name = "John", Age = 20, },
        new Person { Name = "Thomas", Age = 30, },
    };

    var personsDump = ObjectDumper.Dump(persons);

    Console.WriteLine(personsDump);
    Console.ReadLine();
}

//CONSOLE OUTPUT:
{ObjectDumperSample.Netfx.Person}
  Name: "John"
  Age: 20
{ObjectDumperSample.Netfx.Person}
  Name: "Thomas"
  Age: 30

Dumping C# initializer code from in-memory objects to Console.WriteLine

The following sample program uses DumpStyle.CSharp to write C# initializer code from in-memory to the console output:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var persons = new List<Person>
    {
        new Person { Name = "John", Age = 20, },
        new Person { Name = "Thomas", Age = 30, },
    };

    var personsDump = ObjectDumper.Dump(persons, DumpStyle.CSharp);

    Console.WriteLine(personsDump);
    Console.ReadLine();
}

//CONSOLE OUTPUT:
var listOfPersons = new List<Person>
{
  new Person
  {
    Name = "John",
    Age = 20
  },
  new Person
  {
    Name = "Thomas",
    Age = 30
  }
};

Strong-named assembly

This assembly is signed with the key ObjectDumper.snk in this repository.

Public key (hash algorithm: sha1):

00240000048000009400000006020000002400005253413100040000010001008da06ec8c6bd242c52102a9fc293b7af32f183da0d069f7c9522f063cacc3cc584668dfd6cf0560577380822b0c46fdb19e44fc78fad5e8d15b2c24a8766e2769c942705442926b3dcce385eac263893a4b6916976324544792ba1fb4697ab0d1bf28f3c8f0512234fa0a7b732141f7dc4b4a340bdaa95a6c1460c6a699e65c3

Public key token is fcc359471136d8b8.

In order to get these values, run following commands:

• Extract public key of snk: sn -p ObjectDumper.snk public.key
• Display public key: sn -tp public.key

Links

• Standard numeric format strings https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-numeric-format-strings
• Standard date and time format strings https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-date-and-time-format-strings
• Standard timespan format strings https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/base-types/standard-timespan-format-strings
• C# Record Types https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/builtin-types/record
• C# Escape / Unescape https://codebeautify.org/csharp-escape-unescape

License

This project is Copyright © 2023 Thomas Galliker. Free for non-commercial use. For commercial use please contact the author.