How to use C# extension methods with SmartFormat reflection syntax?

Question

Is it possible to make the following example work with SmartFormat.NET?

void Main()
{
    Dictionary<string,string> ps = new Dictionary<string, string>();

    ps["Name"] = "Niels";

    Smart.Format("{Name.Foo} is my name", ps).Dump();   
}


public static class Extensions
{

    public static string Foo(this string bar)
    {
        return bar.ToUpper();
    }

}

This will return " is my name" in LinqPad. I want it to return "NIELS is my name". I'm using ToUpper only as a simple example.

Answer 1

Short answer

It is currently not possible to call extension methods inside SmartFormat formatting braces.

To provide such a feature, SmartFormat would have to look for an extension method of string in all the assemblies of your project, as described in this thread .

Example review

• Inside the formatting string

As specified in the project documentation , you can use the ToUpper() method directly inside the format braces , like this (as the method does not take any parameter):

Smart.Format("{Name.ToUpper} is my name", ps).Dump();

Maybe the SmartFormat developers should introduce Upper/Lowercase Format Specifiers in the future, as many people are looking for such things. Nevertheless, it would be quite a challenge for them as ToUpper() and ToLower() calls always seems to be faster than any other implementation or syntactic sugar.

• Outside the formatting string

Another way to do it would be to call the extension method outside of your formatting string , but then you lose the Reflection Syntax advantages...

Smart.Format("{0} is my name", ps["Name"].Foo()).Dump();

Answer 2

不，它将返回我的名字 ，不能在SmartFormart.NET中调用扩展方法