support net 7's native aot

[ivanjx]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.
i cant use this library with native aot on net 7 because this uses system.reflection.

Describe the solution you'd like
a solution similar to system.text.json is to use source generator.

Describe alternatives you've considered
excluding the types that i want to deserialize in rd.xml works.

Additional context
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/native-aot/

[EdwardCooke]

When I get some time I’ll work on this. Not sure what it will take because we heavily use reflection, but supporting current frameworks and features is important. In the meantime, if you want to take a look at it we are happy to accept contributions.

[EdwardCooke]

I’m still working on this. I got it to instantiate a class. It’s taking a lot of attributes on the methods so the classes and other objects don’t get stripped away. It also requires an attribute added to the class that gets deserialized so all of your yaml objects will require that as well.

[ivanjx]

you might want to incorporate source generators.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/introducing-c-source-generators/

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/dotnet/try-the-new-system-text-json-source-generator/#what-is-the-system-text-json-source-generator

[EdwardCooke]

Well that is an interesting idea @ivanjx . When I get some more time, I'll look in to them.

[EdwardCooke]

Just to give you an update on this. I have a code generator/analyzer that will generate static factories for classes and property/field accessesors. It works for primitive types and anything marked with a YamlSerializable attribute. Generics do not work yet, so things like Dictionaries won't serialize/deserialize correctly.

I have not merged any of this in yet since it's not ready just yet.

I just wanted to let you know that I am making progress on getting this done. I am hoping to have this all done and ready by end of week.

[EdwardCooke]

If you want to check out what I've got, here's my branch: https://github.com/EdwardCooke/YamlDotNet/tree/ec-aot

The demo app that shows how to implement it is in the YamlDotNet.Core7AoTCompileTest project. It's pretty simple.

[ivanjx]

thank you for your great job!

[EdwardCooke]

Pending a review of the PR I just made, we'll have the code in place in the main YamlDotNet library to support the AoT/Trimmed version of the library. Once approved and approved and merged in, I will push up a NuGet package containing the analyzer that you can try out to make sure it meets your needs.

[EdwardCooke]

K, I just merged in my PR with necessary changes to the library for the analyzer. I'll try and push up a test instance of the analyzer, hopefully this week, But with Christmas coming up, it may not happen. In the meantime, you are more than welcome to test out the analyzer on your own, Just take a look at the Core7AoTCompileTest project to see how to reference the project.

[EdwardCooke]

Ok, I have the code generator pushed up. The package name is Vecc.YamlDotNet.Analyzers.StaticGenerator, use version 0.0.2.

Here is an example, working code
https://github.com/EdwardCooke/YamlDotNet.StaticSerializerExample

To run that repo example
Checkout the code
then run

dotnet publish -c release
ConsoleApp1\bin\Release\net7.0\win-x64\ConsoleApp1.exe

[ivanjx]

which part of the library that throws IL3050? is it possible to remove or isolate those?

[EdwardCooke]

The warnings are next on the list but won’t be until later. If you want to take a stab at it that would be great. What I was thinking was try a static builder that doesn’t reference the reflection based stuff and see if it goes away.