BrightSword.SwissKnife 2.0.0

BrightSword.SwissKnife

BrightSword.SwissKnife is a collection of small, reusable utility and extension helpers for .NET, used across the BrightSword projects. It is designed to maximize developer productivity and code clarity by providing robust, dependency-light helpers for common programming tasks.

Table of Contents

• Overview
• When is this library useful?
• Why use this approach?
• Capabilities
• How to use (for library users)
• Quick tasks
• Documentation
• Contributor Notes
• Publishing and Versioning

Overview

BrightSword.SwissKnife provides a set of extension methods and helpers for reflection, validation, collections, string manipulation, and more. It is intended to be reusable, dependency-light, and suitable for use in any .NET project.

When is this library useful?

• When you need robust, well-tested extension methods for common .NET types (collections, strings, reflection, etc.).
• When you want to avoid reinventing utility code for argument validation, type inspection, or attribute handling.
• When you want to maximize productivity and code clarity by using proven helpers.

Why use this approach?

• Developer Productivity: SwissKnife reduces code-bloat and improves maintainability by centralizing common helpers and extension methods. Instead of writing custom logic for every project, you reuse the tested utilities.
• Reusability: The library is designed to be dependency-light and broadly applicable, making it easy to adopt in any .NET solution.
• Reliability: Helpers are used across multiple BrightSword projects and are tested in real-world scenarios.

Capabilities

• Reflection helpers for type/property inspection (TypeExtensions, AttributeExtensions).
• Argument/parameter guard helpers (Validator).
• Collection and string extension methods (EnumerableExtensions, StringExtensions).
• Utility classes for common patterns (disposable, monads, bit twiddling, etc.).
• Per-class documentation and copyable examples in the docs/ folder.

How to use (for library users)

• Reference the library in your project and use the extension methods and helpers as needed.
• See the docs/ folder for per-class documentation and examples:
  • TypeExtensions — reflection helpers
  • Validator — argument/parameter guard helpers
  • AttributeExtensions — attribute handling helpers
  • EnumerableExtensions — collection helpers
  • StringExtensions — string manipulation helpers

Quick tasks

• Build:

  dotnet build BrightSword.SwissKnife.sln -c Release
  

• Pack locally (produces .nupkg in artifacts):

  dotnet pack BrightSword.SwissKnife\BrightSword.SwissKnife.csproj -c Release -o ..\artifacts
  

• Tests:

  dotnet test BrightSword.SwissKnife.Tests -c Release
  

Documentation

This library includes per-class documentation in the docs/ folder. Key topics:

• TypeExtensions
• Validator
• AttributeExtensions
• EnumerableExtensions
• StringExtensions

See each file in BrightSword.SwissKnife/docs/ for detailed usage, implementation notes, and copyable examples.

Contributor Notes

• SwissKnife is intended to be dependency-light and broadly reusable. Avoid introducing heavy dependencies or project-specific logic.
• Extension methods should be well-tested and follow .NET conventions for naming and behavior.
• When refactoring, preserve public API shapes unless intentionally bumping versions. The projects track assembly/file versions in csproj files.
• Prefer small, local refactors and run dotnet build after each change.
• See .github/copilot-instructions.md for more contributor guidance and architectural notes.

Publishing and Versioning

• This project is packaged independently as BrightSword.SwissKnife.
• Versioning is managed by the repo-level versions.json and tools/bump_versions.py helper.
• For CI/publish flows use the root build.proj targets (for example PublishSwissknife). See the repo PUBLISHING.md for full details.