Advanced Examples

This page includes more advanced usage scenarios of Hix templates, showing how you can structure templates and models for more realistic code generation tasks.

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1. Generating a DTO with Attributes

model.json

{
  "className": "ProductDto",
  "properties": [
    { "name": "Id", "type": "int" },
    { "name": "Name", "type": "string" },
    { "name": "IsAvailable", "type": "bool" },
    { "name": "CreatedDate", "type": "DateTime" }
  ]
}

template.hix

public class [[model.className]] {
[[prop]]
  [JsonProperty("[[snake_case prop.name]]")]
  [[if prop.type=bool]]
    public bool [[prop.name]] { get; set; }
  [[else]]
    public [[prop.type]] [[prop.name]] { get; set; }
  [[/if]]
[[/prop]]
}

Output

public class ProductDto {
  [JsonProperty("id")]
  public int Id { get; set; }

  [JsonProperty("name")]
  public string Name { get; set; }

  [JsonProperty("is_available")]
  public bool IsAvailable { get; set; }

  [JsonProperty("created_date")]
  public DateTime CreatedDate { get; set; }
}

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2. Filtering by Property Type

template.hix

// Booleans only
[[prop type=bool]]
  public bool [[prop.name]]Flag;
[[/prop]]

This will render only the properties in the model that have type bool.

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3. Excluding a Property

You can use the [[prop ignore=...]] syntax to skip rendering specific fields, such as identifiers or audit fields.

model.json

{
  "className": "Customer",
  "properties": [
    { "name": "Id", "type": "Guid" },
    { "name": "FullName", "type": "string" },
    { "name": "Email", "type": "string" }
  ]
}

template.hix

[[prop ignore=Id]]
  public [[prop.type]] [[prop.name]];
[[/prop]]

Output

public string FullName;
public string Email;

This renders all properties except Id. This is useful when you want to skip certain fields during generation (e.g., primary keys or audit fields).

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You can combine all these patterns to build flexible templates for generating DTOs, API contracts, form models, or any other structured output.