Possible Duplicate:
What is Difference between Property and Variable in C#
I started working with C# a few weeks ago, and this is something that has really been bugging me. C# allows these so-called 'magic' getters and setters, also known as 'syntactical sugar'. So, I can do something like this:
public int myInt { get; set; }
But from an encapsulation standpoint, this is pointless. For one, the data member is public, and I can get/set it using the dot operator. However, if I do this:
private int myInt { get; set; }
I can't access it at all, as myInt is inaccessible due to protection level
. What is this actually doing? I thought this was supposed to be an easy way to accomplish data encapsulation, so I wouldn't have to do this:
private int myInt;
public void setMyInt(int i) { myInt = i; }
public int getMyInt() { return myInt; }
But it's not. As near as I can tell, I'm just making these variables public. I thought maybe I would be able to do something like
public int myInt { get; }
So the client could get
it, but not set
it, but no, public access is still allowed. So what gives?
EDIT I'm not trying to do anything specific, I just want to understand how this actually works. To clarify:
Making the variable public
doesn't accomplish encapsulation, especially when I can access it with the dot operator. Writing getters and setters for a private
variable allows you to make changes to the variable, but gives you greater control over how that actually happens.
The purpose is that you maintain encapsulation through future modification.
If you initially write your class using automatic getters and setters:
public int Count { get; set; }
Then it'll maintain precisely the same external interface if you then change it to
public int Count {
get { /* very complicated logic */ }
set { /* even more complicated logic */ }
}
The automatic ones are just to help you with the simple properties at first.