C# 4 and .NET 4

Classes ❘ 73
}
{
}
// do whatever needs to be done to set the property.
The get accessor takes no parameters and must return the same type as the declared property. You should
not specify any explicit parameters for the set accessor either, but the compiler assumes it takes one
parameter, which is of the same type again, and which is referred to as value. As an example, the following
code contains a property called Age, which sets a field called age. In this example, age is referred to as the
backing variable for the property Age.
private int age;
public int Age
{
get
{
return age;
}
set
{
age = value;
}
}
Note the naming convention used here. You take advantage of C#’s case sensitivity by using the same name,
Pascal-cased for the public property, and camel-cased for the equivalent private field if there is one. Some
developers prefer to use field names that are prefixed by an underscore: _age; this provides an extremely
convenient way of identifying fields.
Read-Only and Write-Only Properties
It is possible to create a read-only property by simply omitting the set accessor from the property
definition. Thus, to make Name a read-only property, you would do the following:
private string name;
public string Name
{
get
{
return Name;
}
}
It is similarly possible to create a write-only property by omitting the get accessor. However, this is
regarded as poor programming practice because it could be confusing to authors of client code. In general, it
is recommended that if you are tempted to do this, you should use a method instead.
Access Modifiers for Properties
C# does allow the set and get accessors to have differing access modifiers. This would allow a property
to have a public get and a private or protected set. This can help control how or when a property can be
set. In the following code example, notice that the set has a private access modifier and the get does not
have any. In this case, the get takes on the access level of the property. One of the accessors must follow the
access level of the property. A compile error will be generated if the get accessor has the protected access
level associated with it because that would make both accessors have a different access level
from the property.
public string Name
{
get
www.it-ebooks.info