Dumpify

Improve productivity and debuggability by adding .Dump() extension methods to Console Applications. Dump any object in a structured and colorful way into the Console, Trace, Debug events or your own custom output.

How to Install

The library is published as a Nuget

Either run dotnet add package Dumpify, Install-Package Dumpify or use Visual Studio's NuGet Package Manager

Overview Video

An overview video hosted on the Open at Microsoft show

Features

• Dump any object in a structured, colorful way to Console, Debug, Trace or any other custom output
• Support Properties, Fields and non-public members
• Support max nesting levels
• Support circular dependencies and references
• Support styling and customizations
• Highly Configurable
• Support for different output targets: Console, Trace, Debug, Text, Custom
• Fast!

Examples:

Anonymous types

new { Name = "Dumpify", Description = "Dump any object to Console" }.Dump();

Support nesting and circular references

var moaid = new Person { FirstName = "Moaid", LastName = "Hathot", Profession = Profession.Software };
var haneeni = new Person { FirstName = "Haneeni", LastName = "Shibli", Profession = Profession.Health };

moaid.Spouse = haneeni;
haneeni.Spouse = moaid;

moaid.Dump();
//You can define max depth as well, e.g `moaid.Dump(maxDepth: 2)`

Support for Arrays, Dictionaries and Collections

var arr = new[] { 1, 2, 3, 4 }.Dump();

var arr2d = new int[,] { {1, 2}, {3, 4} }.Dump();

new Dictionary<string, string>
{
   ["Moaid"] = "Hathot",
   ["Haneeni"] = "Shibli",
   ["Eren"] = "Yeager",
   ["Mikasa"] = "Ackerman",
}.Dump();

You can ensure that arrays, dictionaries and collections don't output too much by allowing results to be truncated. Do this by setting the MaxCollectionCount property in the tableConfig.

int[] arr = [1, 2, 3, 4];

// Outputs only the first two elements and a message that says: ... truncated 2 items
arr.Dump(tableConfig: new () { MaxCollectionCount = 2 });

You can turn on or off fields and private members

public class AdditionValue
{
    private readonly int _a;
    private readonly int _b;

    public AdditionValue(int a, int b)
    {
        _a = a;
        _b = b;
    }

    private int Value => _a + _b;
}


new AdditionValue(1, 2).Dump(members: new MembersConfig { IncludeFields = true, IncludeNonPublicMembers = true });

You can provide a custom filter to determine if members should be included or not

public class Person
{
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [JsonIgnore]
    public string SensitiveData { get; set; }
}

new Person()
{
    Name = "Moaid",
    SensitiveData = "We don't want this to show up"
}.Dump(members: new MembersConfig { MemberFilter = member => !member.Info.CustomAttributes.Any(a => a.AttributeType == typeof(JsonIgnoreAttribute)) });

You can turn on or off row separators and a type column

//globally
DumpConfig.Default.TableConfig.ShowMemberTypes = true;
DumpConfig.Default.TableConfig.ShowRowSeparators = true;

new { Name = "Dumpify", Description = "Dump any object to Console" }.Dump();

//or Per dump
new { Name = "Dumpify", Description = "Dump any object to Console" }.Dump(tableConfig: new TableConfig { ShowRowSeparators = true, ShowMemberTypes = true });

You can set custom labels or auto-labels

new { Description = "You can manually specify labels to objects" }.Dump("Manual label");

//Set auto-label globally for all dumps if a custom label wasn't provider
DumpConfig.Default.UseAutoLabels = true;
new { Description = "Or set labels automatically with auto-labels" }.Dump();

You can customize colors

var package = new { Name = "Dumpify", Description = "Dump any object to Console" };
package.Dump(colors: ColorConfig.NoColors);
package.Dump(colors: new ColorConfig { PropertyValueColor = new DumpColor(Color.RoyalBlue)});

You can turn on or off type names, headers, lables and much more

var moaid = new Person { FirstName = "Moaid", LastName = "Hathot", Profession = Profession.Software };
var haneeni = new Person { FirstName = "Haneeni", LastName = "Shibli", Profession = Profession.Health };
moaid.Spouse = haneeni;
haneeni.Spouse = moaid;

moaid.Dump(typeNames: new TypeNamingConfig { ShowTypeNames = false }, tableConfig: new TableConfig { ShowTableHeaders = false });

There are multiple output options (Console, Trace, Debug, Text) or provide your own

var package = new { Name = "Dumpify", Description = "Dump any object to Console" };
package.Dump(); //Similar to `package.DumpConsole()` and `package.Dump(output: Outputs.Console))`
package.DumpDebug(); //Dump to Visual Studio's Debug source
package.DumpTrace(); //Dump to Trace 
var text = package.DumpText(); //The table in a text format

using var writer = new StringWriter();
package.Dump(output: new DumpOutput(writer)); //Custom output

Every configuration can be defined per-Dump or globally for all Dumps, e.g:

DumpConfig.Default.TypeNamingConfig.UseAliases = true;
DumpConfig.Default.TypeNamingConfig.ShowTypeNames = false;
DumpConfig.Default.ColorConfig.TypeNameColor = Color.Gold;
DumpConfig.Default.MaxDepth = 3;
//Much more...

Features for the future 0.7.0 release

• Add configuration for formatting Anonymous Objects type names
• Text renderer
• Better rendering of Delegates
• Write the Count values of dictionaries and IEnumerables in the name, e.g Dictionary<string, string>(3)
• Add an option to limit how many elements to render for collections and arrays.
• consider changing the default color scheme to VSCode's
• Documentation
• Consider changing the style/view of ObjectDescriptors without properties (currently empty table)
• Fix simplified type names with Collection expressions (IEnumearble col = [1, 2, 3]);

To do

• Live outputs
• Add custom rendering for more types:
  • Exceptions, AggregateExceptions, etc...
• Rethink Generators caching keys
• Ditch ObjectIdGenerator and create a custom, modern implementation
• Consider using Max Depth for Descriptors
• Refactor Renderers and make it better extendable
• Add more renderers
  • Text Renderers
  • re-introduce Json
  • CSharp Renderer
• Consider Decoupling from Spectre.Console
• Tests
  • More tests
  • Visual (Render) Tests - consider acceptance tests
  • Tests for Nesting
• More sync between Custom Descriptors and Custom Renderers
  • Think how we can mark type's descriptor as needing special rendering.
  • The current CustomDescriptorGenerator must generate a value
  • Consider ValueTuple
• Refactor SpectureTableRenderer to share customization code