'Design By Contract' in C#

c# design-by-contract

IAmCodeMonkey · Nov 4, 2008 · Viewed 25.3k times · Source

I wanted to try a little design by contract in my latest C# application and wanted to have syntax akin to:

public string Foo()
{
    set {
        Assert.IsNotNull(value);
        Assert.IsTrue(value.Contains("bar"));
        _foo = value;
    }
}

I know I can get static methods like this from a unit test framework, but I wanted to know if something like this was already built-in to the language or if there was already some kind of framework floating around. I can write my own Assert functions, just don't want to reinvent the wheel.

Answer

C# 4.0 Code Contracts

Microsoft has released a library for design by contract in version 4.0 of the .net framework. One of the coolest features of that library is that it also comes with a static analysis tools (similar to FxCop I guess) that leverages the details of the contracts you place on the code.

Here are some Microsoft resources:

Here are some other resources:

'Design By Contract' in C#

Answer

C# 4.0 Code Contracts

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