pretty_tostring

A code-generation package that produces beautifully formatted, deeply-nested, alphabetically-ordered toString() output for Dart classes.

This package is designed for developers who want debug-friendly, human-readable string representations without writing boilerplate. Simply annotate your class with @PrettyPrintable(), run the generator, and enjoy clean output.

@PrettyPrintable()
class Article {
  final int id;

  @PrettyIgnore()
  final String secretCode;

  @PrettyObfuscate()
  final String email;

  final String title;
  final List<Comment> comments;

  Article({
    required this.id,
    required this.secretCode,
    required this.email,
    required this.title,
    required this.comments,
  });

  @override
  String toString() => prettyToString();
}

Generated output:

Article(
    comments: [],
    email: "e*********@*****.com",
    id: 10,
    title: "My Article",
)

✨ Features

• Alphabetical property ordering
• Pretty indentation with tabs
• Deep recursive rendering of nested objects
• List and Map pretty-printing
• @PrettyIgnore() to omit sensitive fields
• @PrettyObfuscate() to anonymize Personal Information fields such as emails
• Optional multi-line and indentation control
• Zero boilerplate — fully code-generated

🛠 Installation

Add to your pubspec.yaml:

dependencies:
  pretty_tostring: ^1.0.0

dev_dependencies:
  build_runner: ^2.4.0

🚀 Usage

Annotate your class:

@PrettyPrintable()
class MyClass {
  final String name;

  @override
  String toString() => prettyToString();
}

Add a part statement:

part 'my_class.pretty.g.dart';

Then run:

dart run build_runner build

Your .pretty.g.dart file will be generated automatically.

🧩 Field-level Annotations

Ignore a field

@PrettyIgnore()
final String internalSecret;

Obfuscate a field (example: email)

@PrettyObfuscate()
final String email;

📦 Example

See the example/ folder for a complete working demo.

📚 API Reference

Full documentation is generated when the package is published to pub.dev.

🤝 Contributions

Issues and pull requests are welcome!
Visit the repository:

📄 License

MIT License — see LICENSE.