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Slices don't differentiate between (*) and (**) making top-level cycle checks impossible #468
Description
if I understand the original docs of ArchUnit correctly, there should be a difference between (*) and (**).
- (*) should target the package
- (**) should target the package and its sub packages
See also https://www.archunit.org/userguide/html/000_Index.html#_slices
this is however not how the dotnet port of ArchUnit behaves.
If I specify sth. like CycleDemo.(*) I'd expect it to only check cycles on the top-level
so
- Domain -> Db -> Domain should be detected
- Domain.Beers -> Domain.Wine -> Domain.Beers should not be detected
it will detect however both cycles effectively behaving like (**)
"Slices matching "CycleDemo.(*)" should be free of cycles" failed:
Cycle found:
Db -> Domain
CycleDemo.Db.ViolatingRepository -> CycleDemo.Domain.Service
Domain -> Db
CycleDemo.Domain.Service -> CycleDemo.Db.Repository
Cycle found:
Domain.Beers -> Domain.Wines
CycleDemo.Domain.Beers.Beer -> CycleDemo.Domain.Wines.Wine
Domain.Wines -> Domain.Beers
CycleDemo.Domain.Wines.Wine -> CycleDemo.Domain.Beers.Beer
I compared it with the behavior of the Java implementation and it works as documented.
Architecture Violation [Priority: MEDIUM] - Rule 'slices matching 'demo.(*)' should be free of cycles' was violated (1 times):
Cycle detected: Slice db ->
Slice domain ->
Slice db
1. Dependencies of Slice db
- Field <demo.db.ViolatingRepository.service> has type <demo.domain.Service> in (ViolatingRepository.java:0)
- Constructor <demo.db.ViolatingRepository.<init>()> calls constructor <demo.domain.Service.<init>()> in (ViolatingRepository.java:6)
2. Dependencies of Slice domain
- Field <demo.domain.Service.repository> has type <demo.db.Repository> in (Service.java:0)
- Constructor <demo.domain.Service.<init>()> calls constructor <demo.db.Repository.<init>()> in (Service.java:6)
If I look inside the SliceRuleInitializer.cs it confirms my suspicion. A single asterisk will be replaced with a double asterisk (line 81):
var countOfSingleAsterisk =
pattern.Split(new[] { "(*)" }, StringSplitOptions.None).Length - 1;
pattern = pattern.Remove(indexOfAsteriskInPattern) + "(**).";Am I missing something?
ping me if I should upload my reproduction projects to GitHub!
Activity
alexanderlinne commentedon Jul 24, 2026
Hi @enolive, no you are not missing anything, this is a known bug (see #208). I've been working on aligning this functionality with ArchUnit, but can't currently give an estimate on when I'll be able to finish that.