AutoCompare

What is AutoCompare?

AutoCompare is a simple library with the goal of making it effortless to compare two objects of the same type to generate the list of modified properties.

Why use AutoCompare?

The main goal of AutoCompare is making it easy to get differences between two objects of the same type. AutoCompare builds an Expression Tree the first time you compare a type so the first call is always slower. Once the Expression Tree is built and compiled, comparing two objects becomes extremely fast.

How to use AutoCompare in your project

Include AutoCompare in your project using NuGet

From the package manager console :

PM> Install-Package AutoCompare

Features

• Works on any object type, and does deep compare (compares child objects)
• Reflection is only used the first time a type is compared, successive calls are executing a compiled lambda and are extremely fast
• Detects circular references so it won't throw a StackOverflowException if you have Parent.Child.Parent
• Strongly typed fluent configuration using lambdas
• Supports IEnumerable<> and IDictionary<,> properties, although some configuration might be necessary
• Supports DI/IoC frameworks with the IComparerEngine interface, initialize using a new Engine()
• Supports having multiple configuration for the same type, using separate IComparerEngine instances

Code examples

Compare two objects

var differences = AutoCompare.Comparer.Compare<MyObjectType>(objA, objB);

Configure properties that shouldn't be compared

AutoCompare.Comparer.Configure<MyObjectType>()
    .For(x => x.IgnoredProperty, x => x.Ignore()) 
    .Ignore(x => x.AnotherIgnoredProperty); // Alternative way to ignore a property

Configure a IEnumerable (array, list, hashmap, etc.) property to perform a deep compare. To deeply compare lists, you must specify the property to be used as a key or ID.

AutoCompare.Comparer.Configure<MyObjectType>()
    .For(x => x.ListProperty, x => x.MatchUsing(y => y.ID));

Precompile a type to make sure the first comparison is not slowed down by the compilation process

AutoCompare.Comparer.Configure<MyObjectType>()
	.Compile.Now(); // .Compile.Async() also available

Calling Configure<Type>() is optional and AutoCompare will default to comparing every public property.

Please note Configure<Type>() can only be called once per type, and must be called before executing Compare<Type>(), or it will throw an exception.

More examples can be found in AutoCompare.Tests

Licence

AutoCompare is Copyright © 2015 Steven Gilligan and other contributors under the Apache 2.0 license.