SmartStandards Essentials

• Change Log

First of all, SmartStandards is a collection of best practice patterns for small (bottom up) and large (top down) problem domains. The Essentials package implements a convenience library for small (bottom up) problem domains.

Content Overview

Component	Description
EnclosedTupleExtensions	Manage string tuples like "#Foo#Bar#Batz#"
PlaceholderExtensions	Resolve named placeholders like "Hello {audience}, the answer is {answer}."

Get Started

For dotnet, install the SmartStandards Essentials Nuget Package.

EnclosedTuple Example

string[] stringArray = new String[] { "Hello", "World" };      
string tuple = stringArray.ToEnclosedTuple()); // Creates "#Hello#World#"

StringBuilder tupleBuilder = new StringBuilder(80);
tupleBuilder.AppendToEnclosedTuple("Hello").AppendToEnclosedTuple("World"); // Creates "#Hello#World#"

stringArray = tuple.SplitEnclosedTuple(); // Creates String[] { "Hello", "World" } 

Placeholder Example

string template = "Hello {audience}, the answer is {answer}.";
object[] args = new object[] { "World", 42 };

template.ResolvePlaceholders(args); // Creates "Hello World, the answer is 42."

PlaceholderExtensions

Having named placeholders (instead of indexed like "Hello {0}, the answer is {1}.") is a standard used by most logging frameworks. Unfortunately there is no .net built in support for resolving templates like that. The names are not relevant for resolving. The order of occurance has to match the order of array elements. The names might be used for logging data warehouse or localization purposes (not suppoerted by SmartStandards Essentials).

Enclosed Tuple

Why?

The common tuple style "HelloWorld;Foo;Bar;Hello" has some limitations:

• You can not use simple full text search to find a tuple element

  • indexOf("Hello") would return 0 which is wrong (the correct elemt starts at 27)
  • indexOf("World") would return 5 which is wrong (there is no element like "World")

• You can not distinguish between an empty tuple and a tuple with one empty element

  • If you use string.Split("") you will get an array containing one empty string element - so it's impossible to ever get an empty array.

• You can not reflect null tuples or null elements

Solution: Instead of putting the separator only before an element (except the first), you also put the separator at the beginning and the end of a tuple - so each tuple element will be enclosed by the separator. When searching for a tuple element, you also enclose the element name (e.g. ";Hello;")

Examples (C#, using SmartStandards Essentials Library Extensions)

tupleBuilder = new StringBuilder(80);
tupleBuilder.AppendToEnclosedTuple("HelloWorld").AppendToEnclosedTuple("Foo").AppendToEnclosedTuple("Bar").AppendToEnclosedTuple("Hello")

Will result in: "#HelloWorld#Foo#Bar#Hello#" (we use hash as default separator in order not to conflict with classical tuple style).

You could now use indexOf("#Hello#") (or in SQL: "SELECT * FROM Entities WHERE Tags LIKE '%#Hello#%'"").

If you need more convenience, plus null handling and escaping, you can use SmartStandards Essentials Library Extensions:

string tuple =  @"#HelloWorld#Foo#Bar#Hello#"
string[] tupleElements = tuple.SplitEnclosedTuple()

Will result in: ["HelloWorld", "Foo", "Bar", "Hello"]

Syntax Definition For Enclosed Tuples

Situation	Tuple Representation	Code Representation	Remarks
Collection itself is null	"\0"	null
Collection is empty	""	{}
Collection contains one null element	"#\0#"	{null}
Collection contains one empty string	"##"	{""}
Collection contains one element	"#Foo#"	{"Foo"}
Collection contains two elements	"#Foo#Bar#"	{"Foo","Bar"}
Value contains escape char	"#C:\\Temp#D:\\Temp#"	{"C:\Temp","D:\Temp"}
Value contains delimiter	"#Mambo\#\Five#HeyJude#"	{"Mambo#Five","HeyJude"}	read below**

*) Hashtag is used as delimiter, to avoid looking similar to a "classic" comma or semicolon tuple.

**) The delimiter ('#') needs to be escaped symmetrically, otherwise it would be "#Mambo\#Five#HeyJude#" which contains "#Five#" which looks like a tuple element.