Mapping Many Parameters Programmatically

Question

I have a function for merging data from an object (a PrintTestDataItem) into a template file for a printed label (a LabelFormatDocument called label in this snippet). The LabelFormatDocument is a third-party class that I use to set various fields on my label and I do this by setting the numerous substrings to the values that I want from my PrintTestDataItem object.

There are a lot of these substrings and my current function just sets each substring sequentially, which is obviously not an ideal way to do this sort of operation. What would be a better way to set these substrings programmatically and any other suggestions for increasing the maintainability of this function?

My first idea is to use a dictionary to store the substring names and map them to the appropriate parameter of the PrintTestDataItem, is this the right path to go down?

public void MergePrintData(PrintTestDataItem printTestData)
{
    label.SubStrings["Barcode"].Value = printTestData.IDNumber.ToString();
    label.SubStrings["Date"].Value = printTestData.TestDate.ToString();
    label.SubStrings["WRN"].Value = printTestData.WRNNumber;
    label.SubStrings["Operator"].Value = printTestData.OperatorName;
    label.SubStrings["PrintheadType"].Value = printTestData.HeadType;
    label.SubStrings["PrintheadSerial"].Value = printTestData.HeadSerial;
    label.SubStrings["Batch"].Value = printTestData.BatchNumber;
    label.SubStrings["PrintFrequency"].Value = (printTestData.PrintFrequency + "kHz");
    label.SubStrings["PrintDistance"].Value = (printTestData.PrintDistance + "mm");
    label.SubStrings["InkType"].Value = printTestData.InkType.ToString();
    label.SubStrings["InkColour"].Value = printTestData.InkColour;
    label.SubStrings["InkTemperature"].Value = (printTestData.InkTemperature + "°C");
    label.SubStrings["DifferentialPressure"].Value = (printTestData.DifferentialPressure + "mBar");
    label.SubStrings["MeniscusPressure"].Value = (printTestData.MeniscusPressure + "mBar");
    label.SubStrings["Comments"].Value = printTestData.Comments;
    label.SubStrings["EncoderDivide"].Value = printTestData.EncoderDivide;
    label.SubStrings["EncoderMultiply"].Value = printTestData.EncoderMultiply;
    label.SubStrings["Offset"].Value = printTestData.Offset;
    label.SubStrings["NumberOfGreyLevels"].Value = printTestData.NumberOfGreyLevels;
    label.SubStrings["Mirror"].Value = BooleanRemapping(printTestData.Mirror);
    label.SubStrings["DIR"].Value = BooleanRemapping(printTestData.DIR);
    label.SubStrings["ReversePrint"].Value = BooleanRemapping(printTestData.ReversePrint);
    label.SubStrings["PrintDirection"].Value = printTestData.PrintDirection.ToString();
    label.SubStrings["PrintMode"].Value = printTestData.PrintMode.ToString();
    label.SubStrings["PrintTransportMode"].Value = printTestData.PrintTransportMode.ToString();
    label.SubStrings["AmbientTemperature"].Value = (printTestData.AmbientTemperature + "°C");
    label.SubStrings["HoursRun"].Value = printTestData.HoursRun;
    label.SubStrings["LinesDown"].Value = printTestData.LinesDown;
}

Answer 1

I think the solution for this case maybe is more painful than a long code of config, and this code looks like test data.

A possible workaround could be match the label string with the same property of printTestData. and then call it by reflection. But i prefer have the long config. instead of a hackish-call-property.

Answer 2

Sometimes reflection is very useful especially if you work with attributes.

I guess the PrintTestDataItem class is under your control, right? You can decorate its properties with a custom attribute.

class PrintTestDataItem
{
    [Label("Barcode")]
    public int IDNumber { get; set; }

    [Label("PrintFrequency", Suffix = "kHz")]
    public string PrintFrequency  { get; set; }
}

where the LabelAttribute requires a label name and an optional suffix:

class LabelAttribute : Attribute
{
    private readonly string _name;
    public LabelAttribute(string name)
    {
        _name = name;
    }
    public string Suffix { get; set; }
    public override string ToString()
    {
        return _name;
    }
    public static implicit operator string(LabelAttribute label)
    {
        return label.ToString();
    }
}

By declaratively specifying the labels and with a little bit of reflection you can reduce the MergePrintData method to:

public void MergePrintData(PrintTestDataItem printTestData)
{
    var properties = 
        typeof(PrintTestDataItem)
        .GetProperties()
        .Where(p => p.GetCustomAttribute<LabelAttribute>() != null);

    foreach (var property in properties)
    {
        var labelAttr = property.GetCustomAttribute<LabelAttribute>();          
        label.SubStrings[labelAttr].Value = string.Format(
            "{0}{1}", 
            property.GetValue(printTestData), 
            labelAttr.Suffix
        ); // or string interpolation with C# 6 
    }
}