Properties

• Properties are a special type of member variables.

• They have getters and setters which allow access from outside.

  • A property with only a getter can be read from outside but not written to.

  • A property with only a setter can be written to but cannot be read from outside.

  • A property with both a getter and a setter can be read and written to from outside.

• Essentially, a getter is identical to a method that returns the value of a variable, and a setter is a method that takes in a parameter and writes that value to the variable.

public class Person
{
    private int id;
    public int Id
    {
        get
        {
            return id;
        }
        set
        {
            id = value;
        }
    }

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

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    var person = new Person();
    person.Id = 1;
    person.Name = "Sach";
    Console.WriteLine("{0}'s ID is {1}", person.Name, person.Id);
}

• With C# this syntax can be greatly simplified:

public class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        var person = new Person
        {
            Id = 1,
            Name = "Sach"
        };
        Console.WriteLine("{0}'s ID is {1}", person.Name, person.Id);
    }
}

public class Person
{
    public int Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}