Dec v0.10.0

Added

• Initial support for Recorder backwards-compatibility type replacement.
• Default Godot support for error reporting, though right now it works only if the source is embedded in the project.

Breaking

• Okay I kinda screwed up the Dec Ref thing. Sorry about that. The system should not have been enabled by default; it turns out this causes a bunch of weird unexpected issues. Dec Refs are now disabled by default, and need to be opted-in per-object in PostLoad(). This is a breaking change, although I suspect if you notice any change in your own project, it's likely to be "oh, that was broken before, and now it isn't".
• Also the interface to opt-in to Dec Refs has changed; look at Database.DecLookupEnable() and Database.DecLookupRegisterCustom().
• This is probably not the final form of this feature. I do promise to include this basic functionality in the future, but the actual shape of it might differ considerably.

Improved

• Added support for RecordAsThis() after a class tag.
• Special-case behavior to convert byte[] input into a Base64-encoded string in XML.
• Special-case error when hitting a shared-object error while recording an empty Array.
• Preemptive warning messages when recording an object that cannot be instantiated.
• Error messages on fatally malformed XML.
• Performance for cloning small arrays improved significantly (~20% in a semi-realistic test case).
• Performance for cloning generic objects improved somewhat (~10% in a semi-realistic test case).
• Warning message attached to the default Error exception-throw behavior.
• More documentation regarding error log exception behavior.
• Error message for unused text content in XML nodes handled by Recorders.

Fixed

• Thread contention error when running Dec on multiple threads simultaneously.
• Error when cloning a ConverterString-driven class without a parameterless constructor.
• Parsing a class tag of UnknownClass[] results in an unhandled exception.
• Parsing generics with multirank arrays as parameters.
• Overly verbose output when serializing primitive array types.
• Thrown exception when parsing a generic with an invalid parameter.

Dec v0.9.0

Added

• Initial implementation of Record.Checksum(), intended for easy and fast comparison of recordable objects.
• Initial implementation of Record.ChecksumDiff(), intended for easy and fast detection of how recordable objects differ.
• Added Intent property to Recorder to indicate Serialization/Cloning/Checksum purpose.
• Official support for nullable value types.

Breaking

• Fixing "Recorded Types could be stored as Dec Refs if the right type showed up in the Dec system" may result in v0.8.0 savegames being broken, sometimes unexpectedly. If this is a problem for you, let me know and I'll come up with a fix. I admit I'm kinda hoping nobody cares.

Improved

• Exception messages for ConfigErrors() and PostLoad() now include the Dec name.
• Error messages for trying to clone an object into a different object type.
• Remove unnecessary class tag on Recorder nullable fields.

Fixed

• Reading recorder files with objects with a missing Converter could result in an unhandled exception.
• Cloning objects with children with missing Converters could result in an unhandled exception.
• Recorded Types could be stored as Dec Refs if the right type showed up in the Dec system.

Dec v0.8.0

Added

• SetupDependsOnAttribute, which allows you to define ConfigErrors/PostLoad dependencies between Dec classes. This is a prototype and will probably change in the future.
• A general-purpose stable dag evaluator, which is exposed mostly because it's often convenient.
• Recorder.InputContext, which gives contextual diagnostic information useful for reporting Recorder issues.
• Debug-log functions to Context and Recorder, making it easier to report issues.
• The ability to reference class objects contained within Decs. Right now the path generation works only for members, lists, arrays, and values of dictionaries that are input with non-li keys; this will probably be improved later.
• Added Database.RegisterLookup() to manually add global lookup references. No guarantee this interface keeps existing in this form. But it's there, and one way or another I'll continue to support similar functionality.

Breaking

• Dec doesn't guarantee what order Decs are initialized in, and it still doesn't . . . but it was pretty consistent, and boy, did the above change seriously scramble the order they tend to get initialized in! If you have load dependencies, even if you don't realize that you do, don't be surprised if stuff breaks. Future versions of Dec might include a Dev Mode that intentionally randomizes load order (within the bounds of dependencies) to help catch these issues.
• PostLoad() no longer runs after all ConfigErrors(), but only after its own ConfigError(). This was never guaranteed either but you might have been relying on it. This entire system really needs a revamp. Sorry. Come pester me on Discord if you have a strong opinion on how it should work.
• Rename Dec.InputContext to Dec.Context, since it will now also apply to things that aren't input. Sorry about this one too - it'll take some renaming.
• Split CloneWithAssignmentAttribute into CloneStructPiecewiseAttribute and CloneClassAsSharedRef, because the description of CloneWithAssignmentAttribute was just plain confusing. I don't think anyone's using Clone besides me. If you are, come talk to me on Discord so I can make sure it's doing what you need.

Improved

• Error messages regarding Shared/Unshared conflicts now report the actual location of those conflicts. This is a first revision; please give feedback.
• Clone performance on Dictionaries with asymmetrical clone-as-valuelike parameters.
• General Clone performance regarding asymmetrical clone-as-valuelike parameters.

Made Worse

• The new Path system is probably a performance and memory hit. For now, I'm just living with it; if it's a problem for you, please report it so I can work on it with actual numbers.

Fixed

• Several Clone pathways that would incorrectly Record objects with a TreatAsValuelike converter.

Dec v0.7.1

Added

• Proper support for Nullable.
• Bespoke_KeyTypeDict() parameter for Recorder which allows dictionary key fields to be implicitly treated as class tags for their values. This will be removed once I've figured out a more general way to support this.

Fixed

• Type parse cache bug that could cause non-arrays to be incorrectly parsed as arrays.
• Cloning an object with a factory that depends on a non-shared recorded object can, if the stack depth is too deep, result in the non-shared recorded object not yet being ready.
• Decs that are also IRecordable cause errors when referenced in other Decs.
• Security issue: XML documents could cause arbitrary HTTP requests.

Dec v0.7.0

Added

• New Recorder.WriteSimple()/ReadSimple() modes that produce much simpler XML, at the cost of no references.
• Type parsing now accepts curly braces in place of generic angle braces, in order to make XML easier to write.
• Decs can now include class tags, if you need to specify a type that doesn't work as an XML node name.

Breaking

• Bespoke.IgnoreRecordDuringParserAttribute has been removed in favor of IConditionalRecorder. If you want a version that supports both for ease of porting, check out v0.6.0.

Improved

• Documentation regarding Recorder load order.

Fixed

• RecorderEnumerator: List.Enumerator would not properly serialize if the enumerator was empty.
• RecorderEnumerator: Recordable Closures did not serialize properly if they were created in a generic function.

Testing

• Added a small test.

Dec v0.6.0

Added

• Added IUserSettings, which is passed throughout the Dec system and can be used to change the behavior of Parser and Recorder.
• Added IConditionalRecorder, which can be used to conditionally record objects.
• CloneWithAssignmentAttribute can now be used to specify that objects can be cloned with basic assignment, speeding up array cloning considerably.
• IPostCloneOriginal/IPostCloneNew interfaces that can be used to perform post-clone operations on objects.
• Converter.TreatAsValuelike() which can be used to treat any type like a valuelike. See documentation for details.

Breaking

• Ignoring provided fields in a Recorder is now considered a warning. Use the new recorder.Ignore() method to explicitly suppress this warning for a field.
• Extra RecorderEnumerator's RecordableClosures attribute now needs to be applied to the class instead of the function (but you weren't using this yet, right?)

Obsoleted

• Bespoke.IgnoreRecordDuringParserAttribute has been obsoleted in favor of IConditionalRecorder. It remains in the codebase for now but will be removed in the future.

Improved

• Major revamp of Recorder.Clone functionality to dramatically improve performance (approx 200x in one real-life test case.)
• Recorder no longer depends on Parser.Finish() to find Converters.
• Better support for parallel operations in multiple threads (but not Parser.)
• Fleshed out an error message.

Fixed

• Inconsistent behavior in Extra RecorderEnumerator Delegate deserialization. (Hopefully.)
• Improper storage of this with Extra RecorderEnumerator iterators.
• Unexpected shrapnel caused by the above two fixes.

Testing

• Improved consistency of a few tests.

Dec v0.5.3

Added

• Proper support for multidimensional arrays.

Possibly Breaking

• Changed default culture from en-US to InvariantCulture. I don't think this should have any effects given the manual string parsing for Infinity, but I may be missing something; report problems, please.

Improved

• Error messages for database queries interacting with AbstractAttribute.
• Error message for inappropriately-timed StaticReferences initialization.
• More consistent usage of the Dec.Config culture.
• Support case-insensitive nan/infinity float/double parsing.

Testing

• Added proper testing for AbstractAttribute.
• Add a self-reference test that might be redundant.

Dec v0.5.2

Added

• Now properly serializes NaN-boxed floats and doubles without loss of information.

Improved

• Error messages when passing null or empty strings to Parser.
• Project configuration revamp to follow established standards for framework choice.
• Better error reporting for Converter read exceptions.
• Tagged an internal-error message as an internal error.
• Error message when attempting to use a class that doesn't inherit from Dec as a Dec.

Fixed

• A lot of warnings.
• TypeSerialization.Overloaded test inconsistencies.

Dec v0.5.1

Notes

• Despite the length of this changelog, this is mostly minor bugfixes and documentation. The "big feature" is an Extra package that I do not recommend using in production until it has a lot more work.

Added

• Converters now support generic arguments; they must be converting a generic with the same number of arguments in the same order. This might get changed later.
• Recorder.Clone() function to duplicate objects.
• Added the first extra package, recorder_enumerator, capable of serializing and deserializing both Linq and user-defined enumerators mid-iteration.
• Added support for Stack and Queue.

Breaking

• Type parsing system no longer supports + separator for nested types, but it never wrote these in the first place, so this shouldn't be a big problem. If you have to edit some xml files, sorry 'bout that, this was an oversight.

Improved

• Improved error message when trying to initialize a composite with a string.
• First-time Parser startup speed now faster.
• Type parsing system now properly supports generic nested types of generics.
• User-types now don't include anything under the Dec namespace.

Fixed

• Type caching system no longer results in silent errors.
• Missing Mode property on Recorder.Parameters.
• bool not recognized as a primitive type.

Testing

• Made test harness more durable regarding errors happening during parsing.
• Fixed a test that was accidentally testing the wrong thing.
• Detect internal errors and report them as true test failures, even if a failure was expected.
• Added an integration-unified test for the case where people are just copypasting source files into their project.
• Improved testing of locale issues.
• Reduced compiler warnings in test suite.

Dec v0.5.0

Added

• ParserModular, a more complicated parser that supports game mods.
• A large number of new merge modes intended for game modding.

Breaking

• Minor changes to Parser API to cleanly support more file types.

Documentation

• Picked a more modern and less awkwardly stifling visual style.

Fixed

• Minor errors in several error messages.
• Comment typos in unit tests.

Testing

• Added internal validation checks.
• Better coverage in various areas.