il-lighten-comparer

Fast comparer library

ILLightenComparer is a flexible library that can generate very effective and comprehensive IComparer<T> and IEqualityComparer<T> implementations on runtime using advantages of IL code emission.

Features

• Support for classes and structures any complexity and nesting.
• Highly configurable.
• Fluent intuitive API.
• Cycle detection.
• Collections comparison (IEnumerable<T>, T[], T[][]).
• .NET Standard 2.0, .NET 5.
• High performance.
• No 3^rd party dependencies.

Configuration options

• Cycle detection.
• Ignoring collections order.
• Ignoring members.
• Including fields into comparison.
• Defining order in which members will be compared.
• Defining string comparison type.
• Defining custom comparers by type or instance.

Examples

Basic usage

var comparer = ComparerBuilder.Default.GetComparer<Tuple<int, string>>();
var compareResult = comparer.Compare(x, y);

var equalityComparer = ComparerBuilder.Default.GetEqualityComparer<Tuple<int, string>>();
var equalityResult = equalityComparer.Equals(x, y);
var hashResult = equalityComparer.GetHashCode(x);

And it “just works”, no need complex configuration.

Ignore collection order

var x = new[] { 1, 2, 3 };
var y = new[] { 2, 3, 1 };

var comparer = new ComparerBuilder()
    .For<int[]>(c => c.IgnoreCollectionsOrder(true))
    .GetComparer();

var result = comparer.Compare(x, y);
result.Should().Be(0);

Ignore specific members

var x = new Tuple<int, string, double>(1, "value 1", 1.1);
var y = new Tuple<int, string, double>(1, "value 2", 2.2);

var comparer = new ComparerBuilder()
    .For<Tuple<int, string, double>>()
    .Configure(c => c.IgnoreMember(o => o.Item2)
                     .IgnoreMember(o => o.Item3))
    .GetComparer();

var result = comparer.Compare(x, y);
result.Should().Be(0);

Define custom comparer

var x = _fixture.Create<Tuple<int, string>>();
var y = _fixture.Create<Tuple<int, string>>();
var customComparer = new CustomizableComparer<Tuple<int, string>>((a, b) => 0); // makes all objects always equal

var comparer = new ComparerBuilder()
    .Configure(c => c.SetCustomComparer(customComparer))
    .GetComparer<Tuple<int, string>>();

var result = comparer.Compare(x, y);
result.Should().Be(0);

Define multiple configurations

var builder = new ComparerBuilder(c => c.SetDefaultCyclesDetection(false)); // defines initial configuration

// adds some configuration later
builder.Configure(c => c
    .SetStringComparisonType(
        typeof(Tuple<int, string, Tuple<short, string>>),
        StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase)
    .IgnoreMember<Tuple<int, string, Tuple<short, string>>, int>(o => o.Item1));

// defines configuration for specific types
builder.For<Tuple<short, string>>(c => c.DefineMembersOrder(
    order => order.Member(o => o.Item2)
                  .Member(o => o.Item2)));

// adds additional configuration to existing configuration
builder.For<Tuple<int, string, Tuple<short, string>>>(c => c.IncludeFields(false));

Remarks

• Configuration is fixed for generated comparer. If you want to change configuration you have to request new comparer:

  var x = new Tuple<int, string>(1, "text");
  var y = new Tuple<int, string>(2, "TEXT");
  
  // initially configuration defines case insensitive string comparison
  var builder = new ComparerBuilder()
      .For<Tuple<int, string>>(c => c
          .SetStringComparisonType(StringComparison.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase)
          .DetectCycles(false));
  
  // in addition, setup to ignore first member
  builder.Configure(c => c.IgnoreMember(o => o.Item1));
  
  // this version takes in account only case insensitive second member
  var ignoreCaseComparer = builder.GetComparer();
  
  // override string comparison type with case sensitive setting and build new comparer
  var originalCaseComparer = builder
      .For<Tuple<int, string>>()
      .Configure(c => c.SetStringComparisonType(StringComparison.Ordinal))
      .GetComparer();
  
  // first comparer ignores case for strings still
  ignoreCaseComparer.Compare(x, y).Should().Be(0);
  
  // second comparer still ignores first member but uses new string comparison type
  var result = originalCaseComparer.Compare(x, y);
  result.Should().Be(string.Compare("text", "TEXT", StringComparison.Ordinal));
  

• To help generate more effective code use sealed classes and small types (sbyte, byte, char, short, ushort) when possible.
• For safety reasons cycle detection is enabled by default. But when you are sure that it is not possible you can disable it and get significant performance boost.
• protected and private members are ignored during comparison.
• Multidimensional arrays are not supported now, but Jagged arrays are.
• If a type implements IComparable<T> interface then this implementations will be used.
• Benchmarks

In case of an unexpected behavior, please welcome to create an issue and provide the type and data that you use.

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