ambro-r/formatter

A small library to annotated a class, so that it can be written out to a fixed lenght flat file

Formatter

A small library to work with pre-formatted / fixed length strings. This is especially useful in the following cases:

• When submitting fixed length flat-file(s) to a legacy system(s).
• When receiving fixed length flat-file(s) from a legacy system(s).

TO DO / NOTE:

• Limited support for reading of fixed length strings (no support for lists).
• Need to add support for "skipped" lines. (i.e [Format(Line = 3)], without [Format(Line = 2)]).

Usage:

Any models that need to be formatted need the [Formatted] attribute specified. Individual fields within the class need to be attributed with the [Format] atribute.

[Formatted]:

The [Formatted] attribute supports the following parameters

Parameter	Description
FromZero	If the offset counts from Zero or One. If not specified, 1 is defaulted.

[Format]:

The [Format] attribute supports the following parameters

Parameter	Description
Offset	The starting position.
Length	The length of the string.
Fill	What the string should be filled with. If not supplied a space is assumed. Note: If a string is specified, only the first character will be used.
Justified	Left or Right text justification. If not supplied LEFT is defaulted.
Case	Change the CASE (UPPER or lower). If not supplied case will not be changed.
Line	The line number (for multi-line formatting). If none is supplied, then 1 is defaulted.

Example (single line):

Define a Person object with Formatting:

[Formatted]
public class Person
{
	[Format(Offset = 1, Length = 20, Justified = Justified.LEFT, Case = Case.UPPER)]
	public string Name { get; set; }

	[Format(Offset = 21, Length = 20)]
	public string Surname { get; set; }

	[Format(Offset = 41, Length = 20, Justified = Justified.RIGHT, Fill = "0")]
	public string IdentityNumber { get; set; }

	public int Age { get; set; }			
}

This will produce something like this (depending on what you've values you've assigned), notice the "AGE" is not included as it was not attributed:

John                Simple              000000000A123-SIMPLE

Example (multi-Line):

Define a Person object with Formatting:

[Formatted]
public class Person
{
	[Format(Offset = 1, Length = 20, Justified = Justified.LEFT)]
	public string Name { get; set; }

	[Format(Offset = 21, Length = 20)]
	public string Surname { get; set; }

	[Format(Offset = 41, Length = 20, Justified = Justified.RIGHT, Fill = "0")]
	public string IdentityNumber { get; set; }

	public int Age { get; set; }	

	[Format(Line = 2)]
	public ContactDetails ContactDetails { get; set; }		
}

[Formatted(FromZero = true)]
public class ContactDetails
{
	[Format(Offset = 0, Length = 25)]
	public string Email { get; set; }
	
	[Format(Offset = 25, Length = 15, Justified = Justified.RIGHT)]
	public string MobileNumber { get; set; }
}

This will produce something like this:

John                Simple              000000000A123-SIMPLE
[email protected]   [phone]