Deprecated Warning:

This package is no longer maintained as I just refactored the whole mapping logic and moved to a new package: @nartc/automapper. You can still use this automapper-nartc but it will no longer be maintained and updated.

AutoMapper - Nartc

This is a fork of automapper-ts by Bert Loedeman. My goal is to re-create this awesome library with a more strong-type approach while learning TypeScript myself.

Documentations

Github Pages https://nartc.github.io/automapper-nartc/

Motivations

I know that AutoMapper is pretty weak in TypeScript because of how Reflection works in TypeScript. However, it'd be nice to have some type of Mapper that works for NodeJS development.

Features

Features are limited since I am, by no mean, a TypeScript nor an AutoMapper expert which I'm planning to research more to provide more AutoMapper features to this library.

So far, the following is supported:

• Basic Mapping between two classes
• Basic Mapping for nested classes
• Array/List Mapping
• Flattening
• ReverseMap - Very basic reverseMapping feature. Use for primitives models only if you can.
• Value Converters
• Value Resolvers
• Async
• Before/After Callback
• Naming Conventions

NOTE: Please be advised that the current state of this library is for learning purposes and I'd appreciate any help/guides. Everything is still in beta and DO NOT USE in production.

Future features:

• Type Converters - Help needed
• Value Transformers

Will not support:

• Null Substitution - It makes more sense to use fromValue() instead of implement nullSubstitution(). Please let me know of a use-case where nullSubstitution() makes sense.

Contributions are appreciated.

Implementation note:

I have plans in the near future to update how forMember() method works in terms of the method's signature. I might change it to a lambda expression to support reverseMapping better. But I am open to suggestions.

Installation

npm install --save automapper-nartc

*NOTE: automapper-nartc has a peerDependency of reflect-metadata and a dependency of class-transformer. class-transformer will also be installed when you install this library. Please also turn on experimentalDecorators and emitDecoratorMetadata in your tsconfig *

Usage

1. Assuming you have couple of Domain Models as follows:

class Address {
  address: string;
  city: string;
  state: string;
  zip: string;
}

class Profile {
  bio: string;
  phone: string;
  email: string;
  addresses: Address[];

  constructor() {
    this.addresses = [];
  }
}

class User {
  firstName: string;
  lastName: string;
  password: string;
  profile: Profile;
}

2. And you also have couple of View Models (or DTOs):

class ProfileVm {
  bio: string;
  email: string;
  addressStrings: string[];
}

class UserVm {
  fullName: string;
  profile: ProfileVm;
  firstName?: string;
  lastName?: string;
}

3. Decorate all of your properties with @Expose(). @Expose is imported from class-transformer. This will allow the engine to be aware of all the properties available in a certain class.

class User {
  @Expose()
  firstName: string;
  @Expose()
  lastName: string;
  @Expose()
  password: string;
  @Expose()
  profile: Profile;
}

class UserVm {
  @Expose()
  fullName: string;
  @Expose()
  profile: ProfileVm;
  @Expose()
  firstName?: string;
  @Expose()
  lastName?: string;
}

NOTE: If you have nested model, like profile in this case, you will want to use @Type() on those as well. @Type() is also imported from class-transformer.

class User {
  @Expose()
  firstName: string;
  @Expose()
  lastName: string;
  @Expose()
  password: string;
  @Expose()
  @Type(() => Profile)
  profile: Profile;
}

class UserVm {
  @Expose()
  fullName: string;
  @Expose()
  @Type(() => ProfileVm)
  profile: ProfileVm;
  @Expose()
  firstName?: string;
  @Expose()
  lastName?: string;
}

However, automapper-nartc provides a short-hand decorator @ExposedType() instead of explicitly use @Expose() and @Type() on a nested model property.

class UserVm {
  @Expose()
  fullName: string;
  @ExposedType(() => ProfileVm)
  profile: ProfileVm;
  @Expose()
  firstName?: string;
  @Expose()
  lastName?: string;
}

4. Next, import Mapper from automapper-nartc. You can also just instantiate a new instance of AutoMapper if you want to manage your instance.
5. Initialize Mapper with initialize() method. initialize() expects a Configuration callback that will give you access to the Configuration object. There are two methods on the Configuration object that you can use to setup your Mapper

• createMap(): createMap() expects a source as the first argument and the destination as the second argument. createMap() returns CreateMapFluentFunctions<TSource, TDestination> (Read more at API Reference).

import { Mapper, MappingProfileBase } from 'automapper-nartc';

Mapper.initialize(config => {
  config.createMap(User, UserVm); // create a mapping from User to UserVm (one direction)
  config.createMap(Profile, ProfileVm)
    .forMember('addressStrings', opts => opts.mapFrom(s => s.addresses.map(... /* map to addressString however you like */)));
});

createMap() will establish basic mappings for: primitives and nested mapping that have the same field name on the source and destination (eg: userVm.firstName will be automatically mapped from user.firstName). In addition, you can use forMember() to gain more control on how to map a field on the destination.

Mapper.initialize(config => {
  config
    .createMap(User, UserVm) // create a mapping from User to UserVm (one direction)
    .forMember('fullName', opts =>
      opts.mapFrom(source => source.firstName + ' ' + source.lastName)
    ); // You will get type-inference here
});

• addProfile(): addProfile() expects a new instance of a class which extends MappingProfileBase. Usually, you can just initialize your Mapper with config.createMap and setup all your mappings that way. But more than often, it is better to separate your mappings into Profile which will create the mappings for specific set of source and destination

import { MappingProfileBase } from 'automapper-nartc';

export class UserProfile extends MappingProfileBase {
  constructor() {
    super(); // this is required since it will take UserProfile and get the string "UserProfile" to assign to profileName
  }

  // configure() is required since it is an abstract method. configure() will be called automatically by Mapper.
  // This is where you will setup your mapping with the class method: createMap
  configure(mapper: AutoMapper) {
    mapper
      .createMap(User, UserVm)
      .forMember('fullName', opts =>
        opts.mapFrom(source => source.firstName + ' ' + source.lastName)
      ); // You will get type-inference here
  }
}

// in another file
Mapper.initialize(config => {
  config.addProfile(new UserProfile());
});

5. When you're ready to map, call Mapper.map().

const userVm = Mapper.map(user, UserVm); // this will return an instance of UserVm and assign it to userVm with all the fields assigned properly from User

console.log('instance of UserVm?', userVm instanceof UserVm); // true

Callbacks

automapper-nartc provides beforeMap and afterMap callbacks which are called before a mapping operator occurs and/or after a mapping operator occurs, if said callbacks are provided.

There are two ways you can provide the callbacks: Map level and Mapping level.

NOTE: Map level refers to the actual map operation when any of the map() methods are called. Mapping level refers to the actual Mapping between two models when createMap() is called.

• Map level: all map() methods have the third parameter which has a shape of MapActionOptions: {beforeMap: Function, afterMap: Function}. If any of the callbacks is provided, it will be called in correct chronological order.

/**
 * In this case, both callbacks will be called with the following arguments.
 *
 * @param {User} source
 * @param {UserVm} destination
 * @param {Mapping<User, UserVm>} mapping
 */
const userVm = Mapper.map(user, UserVm, {
  beforeMap: (source, destination, mapping) => {},
  afterMap: (source, destination, mapping) => {}
});

• Mapping level: callbacks on the Mapping level will be called for ALL map operations on the two models unless you provide diferent callbacks to specific map operation (aka Map level)

/**
 * In this case, both callbacks will be called with the following arguments.
 *
 * @param {User} source
 * @param {UserVm} destination
 * @param {Mapping<User, UserVm>} mapping
 */
Mapper.initialize(config => {
  config
    .createMap(User, UserVm)
    .beforeMap((source, destination, mapping) => {})
    .afterMap((source, destination, mapping) => {}); // create a mapping from User to UserVm (one direction)
});

NOTE 1: Map level callbacks will overide Mapping level callbacks if both are provided

NOTE 2: The callbacks are called with source, destination and mapping. **ANYTHING you do to the source and destination will be carried over to the source and destination being mapped (mutation) so please be cautious. It might be handy/dangerous at the same time given the dynamic characteristic of JavaScript.**

NOTE 3: mapArray() will ignore Mapping level callbacks because that would be a performance issue if callbacks were to be called on every single item in an array. Provide Map level callbacks for mapArray() if you want to have callbacks on mapArray()

6. Use Mapper.mapArray() if you want to map from TSource[] to TDestination[].

Demo

Codesandbox Demo Codesandbox