Support prefix overrides at the top level with #[builder(on(...))]

Hi there,

First off, thank you for creating and maintaining Bon—it’s been a pleasure working with it!

As I migrate a codebase to Bon, I’ve run into a challenge with the naming conventions for setters handling Option fields. My current codebase uses set_ as the prefix for these setters. While Bon's built-in support for Option setters is a fantastic feature that removes the need for manual definitions, it uses the maybe_ prefix by default.

This mismatch means I still have to manually rename every setter to match my convention, which undermines some of the convenience.

I’d like to suggest two potential improvements to make this process smoother for me and other users:

Set set_ as the default prefix for Option setters (this align with naming in Introduce bool shorthand (#[builder(flag)]) #142)
Introduce configurability for setter prefixes at the type level:
Allowing users to define their preferred prefix (e.g., set_, maybe_, or custom ones) would offer greater flexibility and make Bon more adaptable to different codebases and conventions.

While either of the suggested changes would address my use case, I believe adding the ability to configure this at the type level would provide greater flexibility and cover a wider range of use cases.

Code snippet:

#[derive(Builder)]
#[builder(on(optional, prefix = "set_"))] // Example syntax for explanation, not necessarily the suggested approach
struct Foo {
    value: Option<String>,
    label: Option<String>,
}

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Hi, thank you for creating the issue! Overriding the maybe_ prefix is indeed something that I've been thinking of having in bon.

I suppose as a workaround you use #[builder(setters(option_fn(name = set_{member_name})))]? That's indeed rather inconvenient. Having a prefix supported via #[builder(on(...))] would be preferred.

I have a big and complex issue about non-flag attributes support in #[builder(on(...))] (#152) with a comprehensive design for precedence and conflicts. However, I don't think this feature would have to be blocked by the full implementation of #152, because I believe overriding the maybe_ prefix may be a frequent use case. We can have a limited, but still useful implementation that accepts only this syntax:

#[builder(on(_, setters(option_fn(prefix = set_))))]

This would apply the setters(option_fn(prefix))) config for every default/optional members (the obviously knows it can skip this config for required members, so we can just use _ pattern here). Notice that the config here is exactly setters(option_fn(prefix)), to make it clear that the prefix only pertains to option_fn, otherwise users might confuse it with the prefix for a non-None setter (codename: some_fn), or for getters (#225) or for the name of the member in the typestate.

I suppose as a workaround you use #[builder(setters(option_fn(name = set_{member_name})))]? That's indeed rather inconvenient. Having a prefix supported via #[builder(on(...))] would be preferred.

This is what I am doing, and yeah it's inconvenient to do that for a lot of fields in a lot of types.

@MuhannadAlrusayni

@MuhannadAlrusayni I'd like to clarify something more.

What is the exact desired naming pattern in your case? For example, the current naming pattern in bon is the following:

#[derive(bon::Builder)]
struct Example {
    required: u32,
    optional: Option<u32>
}

Example::builder()
    // A single setter for the required field without any prefix
    .required(1)
    // Two setters for optional fields. This one accepts a non-None value without any prefix.
    // This is an intentional design choice, so that changing `u32 -> Option<u32>` (i.e. making
    // the required field optional) is fully compatible.
    .optional(2)
    // The other setter for the optional field, that accepts an `Option<u32>` directly.
    .maybe_optional(Some(3));

As I understand you would like to have the following instead?

Example::builder()
    .required(1) // same
    .optional(2) // same
    .set_optional(Some(3)) // uses `set_` prefix instead of `maybe_`

Please confirm if I understood you correctly in the snippet above.

Attribute Config Design

I thought a bit more about the design for the attributes config. I think, it makes sense to expose a configurable prefix at several levels.

I envision the following attributes design:

#[derive(bon::Builder)]
struct Example {
    #[builder(setters(prefix = foo_))]
    required: u32,
    
    #[builder(setters(prefix = bar_))]
    optional_1: Option<u32>,
    
    #[builder(setters(option_fn(prefix = baz_), some_fn(prefix = qux_)))]
    optional_2: Option<u32>,
}

Example::builder()
    .foo_required(1)
    // Setters for `optional_1`
    .bar_optional_1(2)
    .bar_maybe_optional_1(Some(3))
    // Setters for `optional_2`
    .baz_optional_2(4)
    .qux_optional_2(Some(5));

I think the prefix can be used in combination with different name overrides like this:

#[derive(bon::Builder)]
struct Example {
    // Produces `bar_foo(T)` and `bar_maybe_foo(Option<T>)` setters
    #[builder(name = foo, setters(prefix = bar_))]
    optional: Option<u32>,

    // Produces `bar_foo(T)` and `bar_maybe_foo(Option<T>)` setters too.
    // The difference here is that `setters(name)` doesn't influence
    // the name of the member in the builder's type state and `#[builder(getter)]`
    #[builder(setters(name = foo, prefix = bar_))]
    optional: Option<u32>,

    // Produces `bar_foo(T)` and `qux_baz(Option<T>)` setters
    #[builder(setters(
        option_fn(name = foo, prefix = bar_),
        some_fn(name = baz, prefix = qux_)
    ))]
    optional: Option<u32>,
}

And then there will also be a way to specify these same parameters with #[builder(on(_, ...))] at the top level:

// Applies a given `prefix` for all setters (ones that accept `T` and ones that accept `Option<T>`)
#[builder(on(_, setters(prefix = bar_)))]

// Applies a given `prefix` granularly: `bar_` prefix for optional setters that accept `T`
// and `qux_` prefix for optional setters that accept `Option<T>`
#[builder(on(_, setters(option_fn(prefix = bar_), some_fn(prefix = qux_)))]

Unfortunatelly, the syntax for your use case (where you'd like to override the prefix only for option_fn if I understood you correctly), would be a bit more verbose (#[builder(on(_, setters(option_fn(prefix = set_))))), but otherwise I think this would be a more intuitive API. You could further shorten that syntax by using some of the suggestions from this page.

I have a better idea for method name overrides at top level. Instead of a prefix config, it could just be name = "set_{}" using fmt-like {} placeholder for the member name. This way we don't need a separate prefix key to configure the beginning of the setter name, and this way it's possible to configure both a prefix and a suffix.

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Support prefix overrides at the top level with `#[builder(on(...))]` #230

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Support prefix overrides at the top level with #[builder(on(...))] #230

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A note for the community from the maintainers

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Veetaha commented on Dec 6, 2024

MuhannadAlrusayni commented on Dec 7, 2024

Veetaha commented on Dec 12, 2024

Attribute Config Design

Veetaha commented on Feb 12, 2026

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Support prefix overrides at the top level with `#[builder(on(...))]` #230