A Deep Dive into C# Property

A Property acts as a wrapper around a field. It is used to assign and read the value from a field by using set and get accessors. The code block for the get accessor is executed when the property is read and the code block for the set accessor is executed when the property is assigned a new value. A property can be created for a public, private, protected and internal field.

Unlike fields, properties do not denote storage locations and you cannot pass a property as a ref or out parameter.

using System;
 
class Example
{
 string name;
 public string Name
 {
 get { return name; }
 set { name = value; }
 }
}
 
class Program
{
 static void Main()
 {
 Example obj= new Example();
 obj.Name = "Dot Net Tricks"; // called set { }
 Console.WriteLine(obj.Name); // called get { }
 }
}

When to use

1. Need to validate data before assigning it to a field.
2. Need to do intermediate computation on data before assigning or retrieving it to a field.
3. Need to log all access for a field.
4. Need to protect a field by reading and writing .

Different types of properties

Properties can be divided into three categories read-only, write-only, and read-write properties.

1. Read-Only Property

   A read-only property allows you to only retrieve the value of a field. To create a read-only property, you should define the get accessor.

   
   class Example
   {
    string name;
    public string Name
    {
    get { return name; }
    }
   }
   
   

2. Write-Only Property

   A write-only property allows you to only change the value of a field. To create a write-only property, you should define the set accessor.

   
   class Example
   {
    string name;
    public string Name
    {
    set{ name = value; }
    }
   }
   
   

3. Read-Write Property

   A read-write property allows you to assign and read the value of a field. To create a read-write property, you should define the set and get accessors.

   
   class Example
   {
    string name;
    public string Name
    {
    get { return name; }
    set { name = value; }
    }
   }
   
   

Auto-implemented property

Auto-implemented properties was introduced with C# 3.0, which make property declaration more concise. Unlike standard property, in auto-implemented property, wrapped or backing field is automatically created by the compiler but it is not available for use by the class's members.

public int Name { get; set; } 

To make an auto-implemented property read-only or write-only, you need to specify both get and set accessors.

public int ReadOnly { get; private set; }
public int WriteOnly { private get; set; }

When to use Auto-implemented property

Simply, you need to store a value. No additional functionality can be added to either of the accessors.

Static property

You can also declare a property static. To make a static property you must ensure that the backing store field is also static. Typically, a static property is used to make a singleton class.

public class Singleton
{
 private static Singleton instance = new Singleton();
 private Singleton() { }
 
 public static Singleton GetInstance
 {
 get { return instance; }
 }
}

Abstract property

An abstract property declaration does not provide an implementation of the property accessors. It leaves the accessors implementation to derived classes. Abstract properties are declared with in a abstract class or interface.

public abstract class Person
{
 public abstract string Name{ get; set;}
 
}
 
class Student : Person
{
 private string name;
 
 // Override Name property 
 public override string Name
 {
 get { return name; }
 set { name = value; }
 }
}

public interface IPerson
{
 string Name { get; set; }
 
}
 
class Student : IPerson
{
 private string name;
 
 // implement Name property 
 public string Name
 {
 get { return name; }
 set { name = value; }
 }
} 

What do you think?

I hope you will enjoy the property in C# while programming. I would like to have feedback from my blog readers. Your valuable feedback, question, or comments about this article are always welcome.

Jump statements in C#

The break, goto, continue, return and throw statements are known as jump statements. These are used to transfer program control from one point in the program to another point, at any time. Let's understand how these work?

break statement

This statement terminates the execution of loop or switch in which it appears and transfers program control to the next statement which is placed immediately after the loop or switch.

public class Example
{
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
 {
 if (i == 5)
 {
 break;
 }
 Console.WriteLine(i);
 }
 Console.WriteLine("Next statement placed after loop");
 }
}
/* Output:
 1
 2
 3
 4
 Next statement placed after loop
*/

This statement is also used to terminates an inner nested loop, and return control to the outer loop.

goto statement

This statement transfers program control to a labeled statement. The label statement must exist in the scope of the goto statement. More than one goto statement can transfer control to the same label. This statement can be used to get out from a loop or an inner nested loop to outer loop.

public class Example
{
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
 {
 if (i == 5)
 {
 goto Exitlabel;
 }
 Console.WriteLine(i);
 }
 Console.WriteLine("Next statement placed after loop");
 
 Exitlabel: //goto label
 Console.WriteLine("Labeled statement");
 }
}
/* Output:
 1
 2
 3
 4
 Labeled statement
*/

Unlike break statement, it does not transfer the program control to next statement which is placed immediately after the loop or switch.

You can also use goto statement to transfer control to a specific switch-case label or the default label in a switch statement.

It is not recommended to use goto statement since this makes the program logic complex and difficult to understand. It also becomes difficult to trace the control flow of a program execution.

continue statement

This statement skips the current iteration and passes program control to the next iteration of the enclosing loop in which it appears.

public class Example
{
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++)
 {
 if (i <= 5)
 {
 continue;
 }
 Console.WriteLine(i);
 }
 Console.WriteLine("Next statement placed after loop");
 }
}
/* Output:
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10
 Next statement placed after loop
*/

Unlike break statement, it does not terminates the loop execution but it skip the current iteration of the loop and passes program control to the next iteration of the enclosing loop.

return statement

This statement terminates the execution of the method in which it appears and returns control to the calling method.

public class Example
{
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 double length = 5.0, width = 2.5;
 
 double result = CalculateArea(length, width);
 Console.WriteLine("The area is {0:0.00}", result);
 }
 public static double CalculateArea(double length, double width)
 {
 double area = length * width;
 return area;
 }
}
/* Output:
 The area is 12.50
*/

If the return statement appear in a try block and the finally block is also exists, it finally block will be executed before control returns to the calling method.

throw statement

This statement throws an exception which indicate that an error has occurred during the program execution. This statement is used with a combination of try-catch or try-finally statements.

public class Example
{
 static void Main(string[] args)
 {
 try
 {
 int number = 5, x = 0;
 
 double result = number / x;
 Console.WriteLine("Result is {0}", result);
 }
 catch (Exception ex)
 {
 Console.WriteLine("Exception: "+ex.Message);
 throw ex;
 }
 }
}
/* Output:
 Exception: Attempted to divide by zero.
*/

What do you think?

I hope you will enjoy the jump statements in C# while programming. I would like to have feedback from my blog readers. Your valuable feedback, question, or comments about this article are always welcome.