CuttingEdge.Conditions

• Visit the project's home page at conditions.codeplex.com
• Download latest release from the downloads tab at CodePlex
• Download the discussed Runtime Library v1.2 - 740.08 KB (mirror)
• Download the discussed source code v1.2 - 936.75 KB (mirror)

Introduction

CuttingEdge.Conditions is a library that helps developers to write pre- and postcondition validations in their C# 3.0 and VB.NET 9 code base. Writing these validations is easy and it improves the readability and maintainability of code.

Dependency

CuttingEdge.Conditions is language independent and can be used with both C# 3.0 and VB9. The library can be run on machines that do not have .NET 3.5 installed. While the CuttingEdge.Conditions.dll assembly itself has a dependency on System.Core (.NET 3.5), users can safely add it to their .NET 2.0 projects (as long as the C# 3.0 or VB9 compilers are used).

Conditions

Writing precondition validations raises the quality of code. Code with validations is easier to understand and allows developers to find bugs faster, mostly during development instead of during debugging. Writing precondition validations however has always been the poor relation in programming. It takes time to write it and many developers I worked with (even the ones I respect) skipped writing them.

Skipping precondition validations will lead to code that is more difficult to use and is likely to be misused. It allows developers to pass invalid method arguments, which results in unexpected program behavior and those awful NullReferenceExceptions from deep down the call stack. It leads to a higher amount of bugs and thus more time spent debugging.

The CuttingEdge.Conditions library is an attempt to lower the barrier of writing precondition validations and make code more readable, thus resulting in better code, less bugs, and shorter development cycles.

To understand how CuttingEdge.Conditions tries to achieve this, let us first have a look at some code we might write on a daily basis. Here is an C# example of precondition validations, the old fashioned way:

void TheOldFashionWay(int id, IEnumerable<int> collection, DayOfWeek day)
{
    if (id < 1)
    {
        throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("id", String.Format(
            "id should be greater than 0. The actual value is {0}.", id));
    }
    if (collection == null)
    {
        throw new ArgumentNullException("collection", 
            "collection should not be empty");
    }
    if (collection.Count() == 0)
    {
        throw new ArgumentException("collection should not be empty", 
            "collection");
    }
    if (day >= DayOfWeek.Monday && day <= DayOfWeek.Friday)
    {
        throw new InvalidEnumArgumentException(String.Format(
            "day should be between Monday and Friday. " +
            "The actual value is {0}.", day));
    }

    // Do method work
}

That’s an awful amount of code for a few simple validations! Here’s how it looks if CuttingEdge.Conditions would be adopted:

void TheConditionsWay(int id, IEnumerable<int> collection, DayOfWeek day)
{
    Condition.Requires(id, "id").IsGreaterThan(0);
    Condition.Requires(collection, "collection").IsNotEmpty();
    Condition.Requires(day, "day").IsInRange(DayOfWeek.Monday, DayOfWeek.Friday);

    // Do method work
} 

That’s quite different, isn't it? It’s not only far less code; it’s also very readable. And please note that both methods have exactly the same contract. Both methods throw exactly the same exceptions and exception messages!

Besides these normal precondition checks, CuttingEdge.Conditions enables you to do postcondition checks as well. Unlike a precondition, the violation of a postcondition has purely an internal cause. It can be considered a bug. Throwing an ArgumentException in that case would clearly confuse the developer using that code. Because of this difference, CuttingEdge.Conditions will always throw a PostconditionException on a violation of a postcondition.

Here is an example of a postcondition check:

public ICollection PostconditionExample()
{
    object obj = Activator.CreateInstance(typeof(Collection<int>));

    Condition.Ensures(obj, "obj").IsNotNull().IsOfType(typeof(ICollection));

    return (ICollection)obj;
} 

The postcondition example shows two interesting things. Firstly, The Ensures extension method is used to start a postcondition validation. Secondly, method calls can be chained in a fluent manner as shown with the IsNotNull and IsOfType methods.

The API

The CuttingEdge.Conditions API has many validation methods that easily cover 99% of your validation needs. There are currently 412 extension methods for 53 different checks. The API can be divided in eight groups: 

• Entry point methods
• Null check methods
• Type check methods
• Comparison checks
• Collection checks
• String checks
• Numeric checks
• Evaluations

The number of methods will possibly grow over time, and please comment here, on my blog or on CodePlex if you think there are validations missing. I will consider adding them to the library. Also note that it’s easy for you to extend the API with your own methods, by simply placing extension methods in your own project. For more information on extending CuttingEdge.Conditions, please read the Extending CuttingEdge.Conditions wiki on CodePlex.

More Information

This third stable release of the CuttingEdge.Conditions library has just been released. You can download the source and runtime library from CodePlex. Please visit conditions.codeplex.com or my blog.

Happy validating!