Table of Contents

Quick Start

This guide walks you through creating your first ForgeMap mapping in under 3 minutes.

1. Define Your Types

public class OrderEntity
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public string CustomerName { get; set; }
    public DateTime OrderDate { get; set; }
}

public class OrderDto
{
    public string Id { get; set; }
    public string CustomerName { get; set; }
    public DateTime OrderDate { get; set; }
}

2. Create a Forger

A forger is a partial class decorated with [ForgeMap]. Each partial method declares a mapping:

using ForgeMap;

[ForgeMap]
public partial class AppForger
{
    public partial OrderDto Forge(OrderEntity source);
}

At compile time, ForgeMap generates the method body that copies each matching property by name.

3. Use It

var forger = new AppForger();

var entity = new OrderEntity
{
    Id = "ORD-001",
    CustomerName = "Acme Corp",
    OrderDate = DateTime.UtcNow
};

OrderDto dto = forger.Forge(entity);
// dto.Id == "ORD-001"
// dto.CustomerName == "Acme Corp"
// dto.OrderDate == entity.OrderDate

What Just Happened?

The ForgeMap source generator:

  1. Found the [ForgeMap] class and its partial methods
  2. Matched properties by name between OrderEntity and OrderDto
  3. Generated a .g.cs file with the mapping implementation

The generated code is equivalent to:

public partial OrderDto Forge(OrderEntity source)
{
    if (source == null) return null!;
    return new OrderDto
    {
        Id = source.Id,
        CustomerName = source.CustomerName,
        OrderDate = source.OrderDate,
    };
}

No reflection. No runtime overhead. Just straight property assignments.

Next Steps

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