This question already has answers here:
Auto-implemented getters and setters vs. public fields
(17 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I have looked at at least 10 SO questions on get/set but cannot find mine. So I hope this is not a duplicate.
public class myint
{
public int value{get;set;}
}
vs
public class myint
{
public int value;
}
The above 2 codes look the same to me. If I want to use the myint class, I just write the code below and it can run on either class.
myint A;
A.value=10;
So what is the get/set use for?
You're asking what the difference is between using a public instance variable vs. getter/setter properties I assume.
Properties allow you to further encapsulate logic around getting or setting a variable, for example adding simple validation logic. You could throw an exception if someone sets your value to less than zero for example. You could also add further logic in the getter/setter to for example synchronize a specific field.
A few other differences:
Properties can be used for data binding easily in most .NET UI frameworks.
Reflection works differently.
Differing access levels for get/set vs. for example your instance variable you can choose between readonly, private, protected, static, etc. as a whole.
There is more overhead accessing a property. This is usually unimportant in most use cases other than games and highly performance sensitive situations.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/x9fsa0sw.aspx
A property is a member that provides a flexible mechanism to read,
write, or compute the value of a private field. Properties can be used
as if they are public data members, but they are actually special
methods called accessors. This enables data to be accessed easily and
still helps promote the safety and flexibility of methods.
Here are few things off the top of my head that differentiate a public {get;set;} vs a public member variable:
Properties are needed for data binding.
get and set can have different accessors (e.g. public int Value {get; protected set;}
get;set; can be part of a interface e.g. interface IHasValueGetter { public int Value {get;}}
What is the difference between a Field and a Property in C#?
here is when do we use get set
According to the Property Usage Guidelines on MSDN:
Use a property when the member is a logical data member. In the following member declarations, Name is a property because it is a
logical member of the class.
Use a method when:
The operation is a conversion, such as Object.ToString.
The operation is expensive enough that you want to communicate to the user that they should consider caching the result.
Obtaining a property value using the get accessor would have an observable side effect.
Calling the member twice in succession produces different results.
The order of execution is important. Note that a type's properties should be able to be set and retrieved in any order.
The member is static but returns a value that can be changed.
The member returns an array. Properties that return arrays can be very misleading. Usually it is necessary to return a copy of the
internal array so that the user cannot change internal state. This,
coupled with the fact that a user can easily assume it is an indexed
property, leads to inefficient code. In the following code example,
each call to the Methods property creates a copy of the array. As a
result, 2n+1 copies of the array will be created in the following
loop.
you can remove get and set it will not affect the code and working due to the reason that you have defined a variable of type int with the Access type of public so that properties are mostly used to access the private members of class which is in your case do not exist so go on and remove it how ever if in top most class you define a variable with Private modifier the to access it get and set are necessary properties!
// This is an example of property...
public class myint
{
public int value{get;set;}
}
// This is an example of field...
public class myint
{
public int value;
}
The difference:
Databinding techniques only works on properties, and not on fields
Fields may be used as input to out/ref arguments. Properties may not.
Properties may throw exceptions - fields will never do that
Example:
class Person
{
private string _name;
public string FirstName
{
get
{
return _name ?? string.Empty;
}
set
{
if (value == null)
throw new System.ArgumentNullException("value");
_name = value;
}
}
}
Properties support different accessibility for getters/setters - fields do not (but fields can be made readonly)
Related
What is the difference in functionality between using a field with get and set methods versus using a property to attribute a value to an object through a class? For example, when setting up a value val in a class, are there any reasons to choose one of the two classes below over the other (other than length of code written and interface compatibility):
class FieldTest
{
public FieldTest()
{
}
private string val;
public void SetVal(string temp)
{
val = temp;
}
public string GetVal()
{
return val;
}
}
Versus
class PropertyTest
{
public PropertyTest()
{
}
public string val { get; set; }
}
Tested Usage in Visual Studio 2010:
class TestFunctions
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
FieldTest Test_Fields = new FieldTest();
Test_Fields.SetVal("Test");
string temp_str = Test_Fields.GetVal();
PropertyTest Test_Property = new PropertyTest();
Test_Property.val = "test";
string temp_str_prop = Test_Property.val;
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show("Field: " + temp_str + "\n\nProperty: " + temp_str_prop);
}
}
I know only a field can use ref and out keywords, but the other advantages usually attributed to a property--encapsulation, versioning, etc-- seem to be the same with these two setups.
I've checked articles such as Difference between Property and Field in C# 3.0+ and What is the difference between a Field and a Property in C#?. Though they give good descriptions of the ideas behind properties and fields, I have not been able to find a specific answer to my question.
Thanks in advance for clarification.
EDIT 2015-07-29:
I believe this to be a separate question from other StackOverflow answers, such as those found here, as these answers did not seem to specifically address using fields with their own get and set methods as a replacement for a property.
My statement above, "I know only a field can use ref and out keywords..." comes from answers similar to the following (found here):
"Fields may be used for out / ref parameters, properties may not. Properties support additional
logic – this could be used to implement lazy loading among other things."
The functionality is almost identical. For "normal" code use-cases, these snippets will act exactly the same, as a property is in effect just a hidden field with two hidden methods (get and set).
However, there is a difference when it comes to reflection. Properties show up as PropertyInfo, and methods MethodInfo. You also can only bind to properties (in WPF/WinRT). Serialization also only works against properties. Both of these (and doubtlessly others) fail because they use reflection to find the members to act against.
So depending on your use case, they are the same. Generally speaking, I would stick with properties.
In the .NET world properties are how you attribute data to objects. Methods are typically actions associated with the objects. Fields usually store internal (private) object instance state.
Under the hood, read/write property accessors get compiled to get and set methods.
Additionally, many technologies do not work with methods. Data Annotations, Entity Framework, and serialization are a few that pop instantly to mind.
I would always vote for properties rather than getter and setter.
First of all - using Property is neat and clean. The code is more clear, less junky and easy to understand.
If you use Automatic Property you just need one line of code for one Property where you need at least 6 for a getter and setter approach. So if your class has 20 attributes then total 120 lines of codes? Oh Man!!!
but the other advantages usually attributed to a property--encapsulation, versioning, etc-- seem to be the same with these two setups. => I disagree, consider a scenario where you want to force all implementation of an interface with an attribute to be readonly. That is easily doable with a readonly property in the interface. Now try that with getter and setter. Frankly you can't.
Then there comes Serialization. You cannot serialize a computed value unless that is a property. Methods are never serialized.
Let's take a look at your second code:
class PropertyTest
{
public PropertyTest()
{
}
public string val { get; set; }
}
As said in the Auto-Implemented Properties page on MSDN, when you declare an auto-implemented property like in your example, the compiler creates a private, anonymous backing field that can only be accessed through the property's get and set accessors.
In other words, it would be like writing this code:
public class PropertyTest
{
public PropertyTest()
{
}
private string _val;
public string val
{
get { return _val; }
set { val = value; }
}
}
So, properties are a way to encapsulate fields. As you can see on MSDN, too:
A property is a member that provides a flexible mechanism to read,
write, or compute the value of a private field. Properties can be used
as if they are public data members, but they are actually special
methods called accessors. This enables data to be accessed easily and
still helps promote the safety and flexibility of methods.
In my opinion, you should always prefer to use the property implementation than the getter/setter methods. Not because it seems cleaner and flexible to make things like compute values, but it is actually easier to implement (you write less code on auto-implemented properties).
We could say that there are almost no difference from the properties than the getter/setter methods too, if we look at the part where MSDN says "but they are actually special methods called accessors". But again, we have the example of brainless coder above, we have Framework behaviours that encourages us to use properties: methods can not be serialized, while properties can.
This question already has answers here:
Auto-implemented getters and setters vs. public fields
(17 answers)
Difference between Property and Field in C# 3.0+
(10 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I've learned about the getter and setter topic and i couldn't understand the new type of this topic :
Let's say someone is declaring a new get&set method :
public int Id { get; set; };
What i want to know is what is the differences between doing what i wrote below and a regular public variable (public int id).
Comments are welcome.
Properties enhance the notion of encapsulation in OOP (oject oriented programming). That's the of a getter and setter in C#. Concretely, instead of using a simple variable class, you could use a property and a backing field in which actually your value will be stored. The property would be the way to access this backing variable and get it's value or altered it. The good thing about properties is that you can use any logic you want, before you store the value the user provide you. So instead of doing the same check in the methods of your class where this value is setted by the user and then used you could use your property.
Let we have a class called Customer where, one of it's fields is the customer's age.
public class Customer
{
private int age;
public int Age
{
get
{
return age;
}
set
{
if(age>0)
{
age = value;
}
else
{
throw new ArgumentException("age must be greater than 0.");
}
}
}
}
Having defined the above property, you avoid the check of the age that will be provide by the creator of an object of type Customer in any other place. the provided value will be stored somewhere that the creator/consumer of the object should not know (encapsulation) and in general terms would make you life as a programmer far easier.
So you contructor now will not contain any logic:
public class Customer(int age)
{
Age = age;
}
you simply assign the provided value to the corresponding property, without making any check about the validity of the provided value in your constructor.
Furthermore, say that in a method of your class some calculations are executed and the result is going to stored to variable called age. If you use it's corresponding property, you will not have again to make any validation check. This was a rather simple case with one variable. Try to think about what would have happened if you had 6 or 7 variables, a common case in production code.
The above are applicable wherever you have variables, whose values setting requires validation. On the other, if you class holds only varaibles, whose values aren't to undergo a validation testing, you could use the following syntax.
public class Customer
{
public int Age { get; set; }
}
This syntax, at first seems meaningless. Why we should declare this instead of the following one:
public class Customer
{
public int age;
}
The second declaration doesn't respect the principle of encapsulation (for more information about encapsulation in OOP, please refer here. Namely, the second declaration exposes the variable in which we will actually store the value of age.
In a few words, it wouldn't happened anything odd if you had use the second declaration and not the first one - provided that's there weresn't any logic in you value setting. However it's more consistent you use the first one.
A public property keeps the option open to perform validation or other logic while getting or setting the value. A public field does not.
For example:
- You might want to check that an age value isn't negative or ridiciously high
- You might want to make sure that when a first name is set, that it is properly cased
If you offer these properties as public fields you won't be able to enforce these rules later on.
You can also use properties to perform lazy instantiation, which might be useful when working with resource intensive code.
The purpose of Access modifiers is to hide data members from unauthorized access. while the purpose of Properties is to expose Access modifiers. Where the purpose of access modifier dies. The following is the example.
public class Employee
{
private int EmployeeID;
private string Name;
private int Salary;
public int EID { get { return this.EmployeeID; } set { this.EmployeeID = value; } }
public string EName { get { return this.Name; } set { this.Name = value; } }
public int ESalary { get { return this.Salary; } set { this.Salary = value; } }
}
static void Main(string[] args)
{
Employee Employee = new Employee();
Employee.EName = "Zaheer";
}
Here i can access property EName which indirectly access Name. Any comments nd sorry if the question is silly.
The idea of a private field is not that there is no way, whatsoever, for that value to be modified by something from outside of the type. If that were true they would be entirely useless. The idea of a private field is that direct access to the member itself is prohibited from outside of the type, but a limited degree of indirect access can be allowed through some number of non-private members. Those public members will provide some more limited means of accessing the field than public access does.
In your particular example there really isn't much restriction taking place; the value can be accessed at any time by anyone with an instance, or set any time by anyone with an instance. It's still a tad more protected than exposing the field publicly, for example you can't directly create a reference to the field through a ref parameter on a method, but you're right to say that there is very little protection added. It becomes much more useful when the ability of an external entity to modify the field is limited in some way. Perhaps it can get the value and not set it, perhaps certain values can't be set at all, perhaps it will change itself in ways never specified directly by any external entity when methods are called.
The idea at the end of the day is that the definition of the methods/properties will determine what level of access there is to the underlying fields. That level of access can range from almost complete to almost nothing.
You got it a bit wrong. Properties are data members and access modifiers are the ones that modify the access to the data members. Properties are accessible from outside because they have the 'public' access modifier.
Properties are actually a syntactic sugar for methods that return and set a value of a field. Therefore, they have several advantages:
Properties can perform additional checks. Like, you can catch attempts to set EID to a negative value or EName to an empty string.
Properties can set several fields at once to keep the inner data of the object consistent.
Properties can be used in interfaces, while fields cannot.
Properties can have separate access modifiers for getters and setters.
However, setting a field is more efficient because it does not have the overhead of invoking a method.
Your example properties are all very simple and could be replaced by automatic properties. Properties are used to control the access to a field, not just to expose the field.
As an example, if you have a property called EmailAddress, you might want to check the value for a proper email address before it is assigned. You can handle that in the setter of the property and reject any invalid values. You cannot control this inside your class when you expose a field directly.
This is one of the obvious uses of a property, but there are other uses and advantages over using fields.
This question already has answers here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
What is the difference between a field and a property in C#
I'm a beginning programmer and I've read all about class properties. Books state that properties allow you to indirectly access member variables. Ok, so what makes it any different than just making the field public and accessing it directly?
Here's a quote from Learning C# 3.0 by Jesse Liberty:
For example, you might want external
classes to be able to read a value, but not change it; or you might want to write
some code so that the internal field can accept only values in a certain range. If you
grant external classes free access to your member fields, you can’t control any of that.
I don't understand what he is saying here. Can someone further explain this or give an example of why I would want to use a property over making the field public. As I understand it now they would both accomplish the same exact thing...so I'm obviously missing something here.
The other answers provided so far provide details of the advantages of accessor/mutator logic, but all seem to miss out on the ideological point about object encapsulation.
You see, class member fields are an implementation detail. If you have a class that represents a collection, for example, then you could implement it as a linked list (and expose the root-node via a public field) or you could implement it as a resizable array and expose the index0 member.
The problem with revealing implementation details is that you lose any kind of defined interface between your class and its consumers. By ensuring all operations are done via defined methods (controlled by the class itself) you make it easier to work with and provide for a long-term viewpoint. For example, you are far more easily able to convert your collection implementation from one type (the linked-list) to another (the array) without breaking any contracts with your class' consumers.
Don't worry about any performance impact of trivial accessor/mutator methods: the JIT compiler will inline the property methods. If you'll run some benchmarks you'll see the performance of properties vs fields is identical.
He's saying that properties can provide a getter but not a setter, therefore making them read-only (for example)
Properties are just syntactic sugar for a method e.g.
public int SomeProperty { get; set; }
is just sugar for
private int _someProperty;
public int SomeProperty_get()
{
return _someProperty;
}
public void SomeProperty_set(int value)
{
_someProperty = value;
}
This means that property setters/getters can apply logic that a mere public field can't
Edit: I'm not exactly sure what field names the CLR gives the backing fields for auto-properties - it's just an example :)
Edit2:
An example of a read only property:
public int SomeProperty { get; }
and finally a public read - private write (for autoproperties)
public int SomeProperty { get; private set; }
Really useful when you can't be bothered to type a backing field in :)
Just remember, if there is a possibility that you wish to apply logic to a member, then a property is the way to go. This is the way a lot of frameworks work (e.g. tracking 'dirty' objects by using a property to tell some sort of object manager that something has changed, this would not be possible using a public field)
Properties can have side-effects, They provide syntactic sugar around 'getter' and 'setter' methods.
public class MyClass {
int sizeValue = 0;
public int Size {
get {
return sizeValue;
}
set {
if ( value < 10 ) throw new Exception("Size too small");
sizeValue = value;
}
}
}
Properties can also have different levels of protection for get and set, you cannot do that with fields.
public class MyOtherClass {
// only this object can set this.
public int Level {
get; private set;
}
// only things in the same assembly can set this.
public string Name {
get; internal set;
}
}
There are a number of important differences between "properties" and "member access".
The most significant is that you can, through a property, make a member read-only (you can access the state, but you cannot change it). Just like "getter()" and "setter()" methods in Java.
You can also return a computed value from a property (generate a value "on-the-fly", as though it were a variable).
Properties can be configured so that:
they are read-only, Public MyProp {get;}
they are write-only Public MyProp {set;}
they are readable by external objects, but can only be set by the class's internals
Public MyProp {get; private set;}
As others have posted, you can also put logic into your getters and setters. For example before allowing the property to bet set to a new value, you can check that the value is acceptable.
You cannot do any of that with a public field.
Basically, a public field is the dumbest sort of property that you can have. Given that .Net now allows autobacking fields for your properties. There is no good reason to use public fields any longer.
If you have Public Int MyAge
I can set it to -200 or 20,000 and there is nothing you can do about it.
If you use a property you can check that age is between 0 and 150, for example.
Edit: as per IanNorton's example (man, that was fast)
I have a confusion about understanding Property and Variables
public class ABC()
{
public int A;
public int B { get; set; }
}
What is the exact difference between in A and B?
As many have pointed out, A is a field, B is a property.
The real question is, why should you care, and what to use?
I refer to a blog post of Jonathan Aneja:
(Its in VB, but it applies to C# as well ;))
So why use properties over fields, 5 reasons:
1. Fields can’t be used in Interfaces
You can’t enforce the existence of a
field in an object’s public contract
through an interface. For properties
though it works fine.
2. Validation
While your application currently may
not require any validation logic to
set a particular value, changing
business requirements may require
inserting this logic later. At that
point changing a field to a property
is a breaking change for consumers of
your API. (For example if someone was
inspecting your class via reflection).
3. Binary Serialization
Changing a field to a property is a
breaking change if you’re using binary
serialization. Incidentally, this is
one of the reasons VB10’s
auto-implemented properties have a
“bindable” backing field (i.e. you can
express the name of the backing field
in code) – that way, if you change an
auto-implemented property to an
expanded property, you can still
maintain serialization compatibility
by keeping the backing field name the
same (in C# you’re forced to change it
because it generates backing fields
with unbindable names).
4. A lot of the .NET databinding infrastructure binds to properties but not fields
I’ve heard arguments on both sides as
to whether or not that’s a good thing,
but the reality is that’s the way it
works right now. (Note from me: WPF bindings work on properties)
5. Exposing a public field is an FxCop violation
For many of the reasons listed above
:)
There might be more reasons.
I would also like to point to a blog post of Jeff Atwood and conclude with a quote from it:
The really important thing to take away here is to avoid writing code that doesn't matter. And property wrappers around public variables are the very essence of meaningless code.
A is a field, B is a property. A property is basically syntactic sugar for getters and setters. The class you have defined will be compiled into something like this:
public class ABC()
{
public int A;
private int backing_B;
public void set_B(int value)
{
backing_B = value;
}
public int get_B()
{
return backing_B;
}
}
Note that this kind of conversion is true for all C# properties -- accesses to ABC.B will be converted to method calls. Properties basically provide the illusion of a "variable" while actually just being a cleverly disguised pair of methods.
This is important, because it allows you to declare your own get and set method body, which can validate values or do other interesting things:
private int b;
public int B {
get { return b; }
set {
if (value < 0) throw new ArgumentOutOfRangeException("value");
b = value;
}
}
Note that most properties will use a field to store their value. Properties seldom exist on their own, apart from fields.
In C# any "variable" that has a getter and setter is referred to as a property. A variable has no getters and setters or so that is what the text books say.
My programming instructor made us have getters and setters for almost every variable that we created in Java. Even indexing variables he made us use a getter and setter if they were declared at the global class scope. I think this might have been overkill but it did get me to make getters and setters.
The real things about getters and setters are that they more than likely do more than just set an internal variable. Most setters are going to perform some type of data validation to make certain that data can be set to the variable. A getter might also check returning data for some criteria.
If your property is private and your setters and getters are public technically anyone could access your variable and change it as if they had public access to the actual variable. So, in reality, you should check your data to make certain that it is valid or some other data check.
private int myVariable;
public int myVariable
{
get
{
return myVariable;
}
set
{
if (value < 0)
{
throw new Exception("This is your exception some where else in code");
}
myVariable = value; //remember value is something that is
//declared automatically
}
}
public string FirstName { get; set; }
The above is a shorthand way of writing the following
private string firstName;
public string FirstName
{
get
{
//...code here
}
set
{
//...code here
}
}
A property is sort of a short getter and or setter. You can add logic to the set or get of the property or make them private which means that they are not accessible from the out side, where a variable is always accessible (if it is public).
Variable is, well, a variable.
Property is a special type of method that exposes that variable. And since it is a method, therefore, you can do some other things in it apart from just exposing the variable.
From MSDN:
The Property statement introduces the declaration of a property. A property can have a Get procedure (read only), a Set procedure (write only), or both (read-write). You can omit the Get and Set procedure when using an auto-implemented property. For more information, see Auto-Implemented Properties (Visual Basic).
You can use Property only at class level. This means the declaration context for a property must be a class, structure, module, or interface, and cannot be a source file, namespace, procedure, or block. For more information, see Declaration Contexts and Default Access Levels.
By default, properties use public access. You can adjust a property's access level with an access modifier on the Property statement, and you can optionally adjust one of its property procedures to a more restrictive access level.
There is a very good article (link below) about using fields/variables vs Properties from Microsoft itself. Though the article essentially talks about a FxCop violation rule, it clearly defines the difference between the two and the exact usage guidelines.
An excerpt from the article:
The primary use of a field should be as an implementation detail.
Fields should be private or internal and should be exposed by using
properties. Accessing a property is as easy as accessing a field, and
the code in a property's accessors can change as the type's features
expand without introducing breaking changes.
Refer:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/dotnet/netframework-3.0/ms182141(v=vs.80)
In your example A is a public field on the class ABC and B is a public property on the class ABC. Specifically, B is an auto-implemented property. What this means is that "under the hood" the compiler does some of the work for you and effectively transforms your code into:
public class ABC()
{
private int b;
public int A;
public int B
{
get
{
return b;
}
set
{
b = value;
}
}
}
Variable is defined basically for accessing value from a class or into the same class according to their modifier assigned to those variable.
When we define a property there two methods created for single property so extra overhead is generated that is the drawback of property.
The advantages of properties is to get or set value into private variable of class.