Automatic Properties, Object Initializers and Collection Initializers

Introduction

In c# 3.0 and later versions many new features are available but some people are not aware of them. There are some new features explained below In C# 3.0 and later.

Auto-implemented properties:

Auto-implemented properties make property-declaration more concise when no additional logic is required in the property accessors. They also enable client code to create objects. When you declare a property as shown in the following example, the compiler creates a private, anonymous backing field that can only be accessed through the property's get and set accessors.

Let’s see the old writing method.

public class Person

{

 private string _firstName;

 private string _lastName;

 private int _age;

 public string FirstName

 {

  get

  { return _firstName; }

  set

  { _firstName = value; }

 }

 public string LastName

 {

  get

  { return _lastName; }

  set

  { _lastName = value; }

 }

 public int Age

 {

  get

  { return _age; }

  set

  { _age = value; }

 }

}

Now we can see the enhanced implementation.

public class Person

{

 public string FirstName

 {

  get;

  set;

 }

 public string LastName

 {

  get;

  set;

 }

 public int Age

 {

  get;

  set;

 }

}

Note: This way is possible only when you don’t want to write any logical implementation in the getter/setter part. If you want to write implementation then you must go through the old method.

Object & Collection Initializers:

Object/Collection initializers, let you assign values to any accessible fields or properties of an object at creation time without having to explicitly invoke a constructor.

Considering above example now we initialize of an object with the old method.

Person person1 = new Person();

person1.FirstName = "Munavvar";

person1.LastName = "Husein";

person1.Age = 25;

Now in place of this we can write it like,

Person person1 = new Person

{

 FirstName = "Munavvar",

 LastName = "Husein",

 Age = 25

};

In the case of Collections same thing would be done as under. Considering above examle to make a list with old method.

List<Person> lstPerson = new List<Person>();

Person persons = new Person();

persons.FirstName = "Munavvar";

persons.LastName = "Husein";

persons.Age = 25;

lstPerson.Add(persons);

persons = new Person();

persons.FirstName = "Rikin";

persons.LastName = "Patel";

persons.Age = 26;

lstPerson.Add(persons);

Now in place of this we can write it like,

List<Person> lstPerson = new List<Person>;

{

 new Person

 {

  FirstName = "Munavvar",

  LastName = "Husein",

  Age = 25

 },

 new Person

 {

  FirstName = "Rikin",

  LastName = "Patel",

  Age = 26

 }

};

Conclusion:

As per enhanced feature we can just reduse the burdon of typing extra statements with no loss of performance.