Properties

Properties (C# Programming Guide) 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.

The accessor of a property contains the executable statements that help in getting (reading or computing) or setting (writing) a corresponding field. Accessor declarations can include a get accessor, a set accessor, or both.
For example:

class Person
{
private string name; //field

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

The Person class has a Name property that has both the set and the get accessors.
The set accessor is used to assign a value to the name variable; get is used to return its value.

value is a special keyword, which represents the value we assign to a property using the set accessor.
The name of the property can be anything you want, but coding conventions dictate properties have the same name as the private field with a capital letter.

Once the property is defined, we can use it to assign and read the private member:

The Code:

The Output of Your Program:

The property is accessed by its name, just like any other public member of the class.

`Any accessor of a property can be omitted.
For example, the following code creates a property that is read-only:

class Person
{
private string name;
public string Name
{
get { return name; }
}

A property can also be private, so it can be called only from within the class.

So, why use properties? Why not just declare the member variable public and access it directly?
With properties you have the option to control the logic of accessing the variable.
For example, you can check if the value of age is greater than 0, before assigning it to the variable:

class Person
{
private int age=0;
public int Age
{
get { return age; }
set {
if (value > 0)
age = value;
}
}
}

You can have any custom logic with get and set accessors.

Auto-Implemented Properties

When you do not need any custom logic, C# provides a fast and effective mechanism for declaring private members through their properties.
For example, to create a private member that can only be accessed through the Name property‘s get and set accessors, use the following syntax:

public string Name { get; set; }

As you can see, you do not need to declare the private field name separately – it is created by the property automatically. Name is called an auto-implemented property. Also called auto-properties, they allow for easy and short declaration of private members.
We can rewrite the code from our previous example using an auto-property:

The Code:

The Output of Your Program: