Champion: Module Initializers (VS 16.8, .NET 5)

See also https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/issues/2486 Although the .NET platform has a feature that directly supports writing initialization code for the assembly (technically, the module), it is not exposed in C#. This is a rather niche scenario, but once you run into it the solutions appear to be pretty painful. I have seen reports of [a number of customers](https://www.google.com/search?q=.net+module+constructor+c%23&oq=.net+module+constructor) (inside and outside Microsoft) struggle with the problem, and there are no doubt more undocumented cases. I suggest that we would add a tiny feature to support this without any explicit syntax, by having the C# compiler recognize a module attribute with a well-known name, like the following: ``` c# namespace System.Runtime.CompilerServices { [Obsolete("This attribute is only to be used in C# language version 9.0 or later", true)] [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Module, AllowMultiple = false)] public class ModuleInitializerAttribute : Attribute { public ModuleInitializerAttribute(Type type) { } } } ``` You would use it like this ``` c# [module: System.Runtime.CompilerServices.ModuleInitializerAttribute(typeof(MyModuleInitializer))] internal static class MyModuleInitializer { static MyModuleInitializer() { // put your module initializer here } } ``` and the C# compiler would then emit a module constructor that causes the static constructor of the identified type to be trigg

Posted by gafter on Jun 18, 2019, 9:28 PM

Tags

• support (Software)

Related issues

• Add 65536 size support for maps
• TypeScript 7.1 Iteration Plan
• nvim-treeconfig: upstream nvim-treesitter
• Add the "action" and "method" attributes to <button>
• [FEATURE] Support multiple Connector accounts (same connector, different accounts) in Claude and Claude Code on the web (claude.ai/code)
• > We were imposed GitHub for so many exercises!