METHOD OF IMPROVING CODE REUSABILITY BY IMPLEMENTING TRAITS IN .NET
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35546/kntu2078-4481.2025.3.2.13Keywords:
metaprogramming, .NET, code generation, software development, traitsAbstract
The article describes a method improving code reusability by implementing traits in .NET. The main methods for improving the possibilities of reusing software components in the object-oriented programming paradigm are analyzed. The advantages and disadvantages of multiple and single inheritance are analyzed. It is established that multiple inheritance has a positive effect on modularity and on the code reusability, however, it can lead to a more complex class hierarchy, has more complex semantics and is not always supported by the programming language. As an alternative to inheritance, the use of composition to ensure the reuse of software components is considered. The concept of traits is analyzed, which utilizes composition and is implemented in a number of modern programming languages as an alternative to multiple inheritance. As a result of the analysis, it is established that traits allow you to obtain functionality similar to multiple inheritance without drawbacks it causes. A number of proposals for expanding the concept by adding the ability to define states are also analyzed. Based on this, a traits model was developed for implementation in .NET, which allows defining states and providing better control over member overriding during composition. Since composition can be implemented by utilizing metaprogramming techniques, the corresponding .NET platform metaprogramming toolkit was analyzed.As a result of the analysis, it was determined that the Incremental Source Generators tool in combination with the Roslyn API will allow achieving the desired result. For this purpose, it is proposed to use a code generator that will generate partial declarations of classes that will contain members of the corresponding trait. As an alternative to keywords, it is proposed to use metadata attributes to control the behavior of such a code generator. Such a code generator should work not only during compilation, but also react to the source code changes. This method will allow fully implementing the traits concept in .NET, which will help improve code reusability when developing on this platform.
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