Holds any value of any type, without boxing small structs.

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Any is a C# struct that can hold any value of any type, similar to the object type, but without the overhead of boxing for small value types (up to 8 bytes). This library is designed to offer flexibility and efficiency when dealing with unknown or dynamic data types while minimizing garbage collection (GC) pressure.

Additionally, it can simplify API design in scenarios where using generics or method overloads is burdensome (or even impossible).

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Documentation & more information at: https://badeend.github.io/Any/

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Installation

dotnet add package Badeend.Any

Usage

In its most basic form, it can be as simple as this:

Any a = 42; // Does not allocate.
Any b = "Hello world";
Any c = DateTime.UtcNow;

// Somewhere down the line:

var i = (int)a;
var s = (string)b;
var d = (DateTime)c;

Unlike object, two Any instances are considered equal when their content is the same:

Any x = 123;
Any y = 123;

// If you were to use `object`, the following line would fail:
Assert(x == y); // => true

More operations are available as extension methods:

_ = a.As<int>(); // Similar to: `a as int?`
_ = a.Is<int>(); // Similar to: `a is int`
_ = a.Cast<int>(); // Similar to: `(int)a`

Full API reference

When can boxing be avoided?

Data can be inlined into the Any instance itself for any struct type (including user-defined types) that:

• is 8 bytes in size or less, and:
• does not contain references.

In practice this turns out to be many of the commonly used .NET built-ins:

• bool
• char
• byte
• sbyte
• short
• ushort
• int
• uint
• long
• ulong
• nint / IntPtr
• nuint / UIntPtr
• float
• double
• DateTime
• TimeSpan
• DateOnly
• TimeOnly
• Index
• Range
• all enums
• ValueTuples such as (int, int)

Shameless self-promotion

May I interest you in one of my other packages?

• Badeend.ValueCollections: Low overhead immutable collection types with structural equality.
• Badeend.EnumClass: Discriminated unions for C# with exhaustiveness checking.
• Badeend.Result: For failures that are not exceptional: Result<T,E> for C#.
• Badeend.Any: Holds any value of any type, without boxing small structs (up to 8 bytes).
• Badeend.Nothing: If you want to use void as a type parameter, but C# won't let you.