Manually map column names with class properties

Question

Dapper now supports custom column to property mappers. It does so through the ITypeMap interface. A CustomPropertyTypeMap class is provided by Dapper that can do most of this work. For example:

Dapper.SqlMapper.SetTypeMap(
    typeof(TModel),
    new CustomPropertyTypeMap(
        typeof(TModel),
        (type, columnName) =>
            type.GetProperties().FirstOrDefault(prop =>
                prop.GetCustomAttributes(false)
                    .OfType<ColumnAttribute>()
                    .Any(attr => attr.Name == columnName))));

And the model:

public class TModel {
    [Column(Name="my_property")]
    public int MyProperty { get; set; }
}

It's important to note that the implementation of CustomPropertyTypeMap requires that the attribute exist and match one of the column names or the property won't be mapped. The DefaultTypeMap class provides the standard functionality and can be leveraged to change this behavior:

public class FallbackTypeMapper : SqlMapper.ITypeMap
{
    private readonly IEnumerable<SqlMapper.ITypeMap> _mappers;

    public FallbackTypeMapper(IEnumerable<SqlMapper.ITypeMap> mappers)
    {
        _mappers = mappers;
    }

    public SqlMapper.IMemberMap GetMember(string columnName)
    {
        foreach (var mapper in _mappers)
        {
            try
            {
                var result = mapper.GetMember(columnName);
                if (result != null)
                {
                    return result;
                }
            }
            catch (NotImplementedException nix)
            {
            // the CustomPropertyTypeMap only supports a no-args
            // constructor and throws a not implemented exception.
            // to work around that, catch and ignore.
            }
        }
        return null;
    }
    // implement other interface methods similarly

    // required sometime after version 1.13 of dapper
    public ConstructorInfo FindExplicitConstructor()
    {
        return _mappers
            .Select(mapper => mapper.FindExplicitConstructor())
            .FirstOrDefault(result => result != null);
    }
}

And with that in place, it becomes easy to create a custom type mapper that will automatically use the attributes if they're present but will otherwise fall back to standard behavior:

public class ColumnAttributeTypeMapper<T> : FallbackTypeMapper
{
    public ColumnAttributeTypeMapper()
        : base(new SqlMapper.ITypeMap[]
            {
                new CustomPropertyTypeMap(
                   typeof(T),
                   (type, columnName) =>
                       type.GetProperties().FirstOrDefault(prop =>
                           prop.GetCustomAttributes(false)
                               .OfType<ColumnAttribute>()
                               .Any(attr => attr.Name == columnName)
                           )
                   ),
                new DefaultTypeMap(typeof(T))
            })
    {
    }
}

That means we can now easily support types that require map using attributes:

Dapper.SqlMapper.SetTypeMap(
    typeof(MyModel),
    new ColumnAttributeTypeMapper<MyModel>());

Here's a Gist to the full source code.

This works fine:

var sql = @"select top 1 person_id PersonId, first_name FirstName, last_name LastName from Person";
using (var conn = ConnectionFactory.GetConnection())
{
    var person = conn.Query<Person>(sql).ToList();
    return person;
}

Dapper has no facility that allows you to specify a Column Attribute, I am not against adding support for it, providing we do not pull in the dependency.

For some time, the following should work:

Dapper.DefaultTypeMap.MatchNamesWithUnderscores = true;

I do the following using dynamic and LINQ:

    var sql = @"select top 1 person_id, first_name, last_name from Person";
    using (var conn = ConnectionFactory.GetConnection())
    {
        List<Person> person = conn.Query<dynamic>(sql)
                                  .Select(item => new Person()
                                  {
                                      PersonId = item.person_id,
                                      FirstName = item.first_name,
                                      LastName = item.last_name
                                  }
                                  .ToList();

        return person;
    }

Here is a simple solution that doesn't require attributes allowing you to keep infrastructure code out of your POCOs.

This is a class to deal with the mappings. A dictionary would work if you mapped all the columns, but this class allows you to specify just the differences. In addition, it includes reverse maps so you can get the field from the column and the column from the field, which can be useful when doing things such as generating sql statements.

public class ColumnMap
{
    private readonly Dictionary<string, string> forward = new Dictionary<string, string>();
    private readonly Dictionary<string, string> reverse = new Dictionary<string, string>();

    public void Add(string t1, string t2)
    {
        forward.Add(t1, t2);
        reverse.Add(t2, t1);
    }

    public string this[string index]
    {
        get
        {
            // Check for a custom column map.
            if (forward.ContainsKey(index))
                return forward[index];
            if (reverse.ContainsKey(index))
                return reverse[index];

            // If no custom mapping exists, return the value passed in.
            return index;
        }
    }
}

Setup the ColumnMap object and tell Dapper to use the mapping.

var columnMap = new ColumnMap();
columnMap.Add("Field1", "Column1");
columnMap.Add("Field2", "Column2");
columnMap.Add("Field3", "Column3");

SqlMapper.SetTypeMap(typeof (MyClass), new CustomPropertyTypeMap(typeof (MyClass), (type, columnName) => type.GetProperty(columnMap[columnName])));

Taken from the Dapper Tests which is currently on Dapper 1.42.

// custom mapping
var map = new CustomPropertyTypeMap(typeof(TypeWithMapping), 
                                    (type, columnName) => type.GetProperties().FirstOrDefault(prop => GetDescriptionFromAttribute(prop) == columnName));
Dapper.SqlMapper.SetTypeMap(typeof(TypeWithMapping), map);

Helper class to get name off the Description attribute (I personally have used Column like @kalebs example)

static string GetDescriptionFromAttribute(MemberInfo member)
{
   if (member == null) return null;

   var attrib = (DescriptionAttribute)Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(member, typeof(DescriptionAttribute), false);
   return attrib == null ? null : attrib.Description;
}

Class

public class TypeWithMapping
{
   [Description("B")]
   public string A { get; set; }

   [Description("A")]
   public string B { get; set; }
}