Table of Contents

Builders and expandos

Builder constructs object graphs inline, in one expression, rather than by creating an object and assigning members one statement at a time.

Expandos

The common case is building an ExpandoObject:

using System.Dynamic;
using Dynamitey;

dynamic result = Expando.New(
    Test:  "test1",
    Test2: "Test 2nd");

var value = result.Test;    // "test1"

The member names come from the named arguments. There is no prototype type to declare and no sequence of assignments.

The general form

Expando.New is a convenience over the general builder, which works for any type:

var builder = Builder.New<ExpandoObject>();

dynamic result = builder.Object(
    Test:  "test1",
    Test2: "Test 2nd");

These two produce the same object — same values, same runtime type.

Naming the thing you are building

Calling any member other than Object names the constructed object, which reads better for nested graphs:

dynamic builder = new DynamicObjects.Builder<ExpandoObject>();

var robot = builder.Robot(
    LeftArm:  "Rise",
    RightArm: "Fall");

Robot is not a member that exists anywhere. The builder treats the name as a label, which is what makes a nested graph readable — each level says what it is rather than repeating Object.

Why Object and Single are named that way

IBuilder.Object collides with a C# keyword, and so does ILinq.Single. Both are kept because they mirror the surface they stand in for — Object is the neutral name for "the thing being built", and Single mirrors Enumerable.Single. Renaming either to satisfy a naming analyzer would break the mirroring for no benefit.

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