Introduction
Have you ever wondered how to make your C# applications more user-friendly and readable? How to format strings, numbers, dates, and enums in a way that is easy for humans to understand? How to avoid writing complex and tedious code for common tasks like pluralization, ordinalization, and casing?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you might be interested in Humanizer, a free, open-source .NET library that offers a set of extension methods and utilities to format and manipulate strings, numbers, dates, times, timespans, numbers, and quantities. Humanizer is part of the .NET Foundation, and operates under their code of conduct. It is licensed under the MIT (an OSI approved license).
In this article, I will show you how to install and use Humanizer in your C# projects, and demonstrate some of its basic and advanced features. By the end of this article, you will be able to enhance your user experience in C# with Humanizer.
Installing Humanizer
The easiest way to install Humanizer is to use the NuGet Package Manager, which is a tool that helps you manage the dependencies of your .NET projects. You can use the NuGet Package Manager Console, the Visual Studio UI, or the dotnet CLI to install Humanizer.
To install Humanizer using the NuGet Package Manager Console, open the console in Visual Studio and type the following command.
Install-Package Humanizer
To install Humanizer using the Visual Studio UI, right-click on your project in the Solution Explorer and select Manage NuGet Packages. Then search for Humanizer in the Browse tab and click Install.
To install Humanizer using the dotnet CLI, open a command prompt and navigate to your project folder. Then type the following command.
dotnet add package Humanizer
After installing Humanizer, you can add it to your C# project by adding the following using statement at the top of your code file.
using Humanizer;
Basic String Humanization
One of the most common uses of Humanizer is to humanize strings, which means to convert them from a machine-readable format to a human-readable format. For example, you can use Humanizer to convert camelCase and PascalCase strings to readable text, format numbers and dates in a human-friendly way, and pluralize and singularize words.
To convert camelCase and PascalCase strings to readable text, you can use the Humanize extension method on any string. For example.
string camelCase = "thisIsAString";
string pascalCase = "ThisIsAString";
Console.WriteLine(camelCase.Humanize()); // This is a string
Console.WriteLine(pascalCase.Humanize()); // This is a string
To format numbers and dates in a human-friendly way, you can use the ToWords and Humanize extension methods on any number or date. For example.
int number = 42;
DateTime date = new DateTime(2023, 11, 26);
Console.WriteLine(number.ToWords()); // forty two
Console.WriteLine(date.Humanize()); // 10 hours ago
To pluralize and singularize words, you can use the Pluralize and Singularize extension methods on any string. For example.
string word = "cat";
Console.WriteLine(word.Pluralize()); // cats
Console.WriteLine(word.Singularize()); // cat
word = "index";
Console.WriteLine(word.Pluralize()); // indices
Console.WriteLine(word.Singularize()); // index
Advanced String Manipulation
Humanizer also provides some advanced features for string manipulation, such as abbreviations and acronyms expansion, transforming strings to Title Case, and dealing with ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd).
To expand abbreviations and acronyms, you can use the Dehumanize extension method on any string. For example.
string mr = "Mr.";
string nasa = "National Aeronautics and Space Administration";
Console.WriteLine(mr.Dehumanize()); // Mr
Console.WriteLine(nasa.Dehumanize()); // NationalAeronauticsAndSpaceAdministration
To transform strings to Title Case, you can use the Transform extension method on any string, and pass the To.TitleCase parameter. For example.
string sentence = "this is a title";
Console.WriteLine(sentence.Transform(To.TitleCase)); // This Is a Title
To deal with ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd), you can use the Ordinalize extension method on any number. For example.
int number = 42;
Console.WriteLine(number.Ordinalize()); // 42nd
Conclusion
In this article, I have shown you how to install and use Humanizer in your C# projects, and demonstrated some of its basic and advanced features. Humanizer is a powerful and versatile library that can help you format and manipulate strings and numbers in a way that is easy for humans to read and understand. It can save you a lot of time and effort by eliminating the need for complex and tedious code for common tasks like pluralization, ordinalization, and casing.
I hope you enjoyed this article and learned something new. Thank you for reading and happy coding!