I have class Important and some objects of this class created. I want allow user to choose main object of this class. Have a look at code below:
public class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Important imp1 = new Important("Important 1");
Important imp2 = new Important("Important 2");
Important imp3 = new Important("Important 3");
imp2.SetMostImportant();
Console.Write(Important.MostImportant.Name);
}
public class Important
{
public Important(string name)
{
Name = name;
if(MostImportant == null)
SetMostImportant();
}
public string Name { get; private set; }
public static Important MostImportant { get; private set; }
public void SetMostImportant()
{
MostImportant = this;
}
}
}
Is it good solution? If not, please tell me why not.
Before, to achieve this kind of things I just created boolean field named e.g. IsMainObject and, when I wanted to change main object, I iterated through all objects (or group of object) of specific class except element that I want to be main, and changed boolean to false, in my new candidate I simply set flag to true. Example below:
public class Program
{
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
Important imp1 = new Important("Important 1");
Important imp2 = new Important("Important 2");
Important imp3 = new Important("Important 3");
List<Important> list = new List<Important> { imp1, imp2, imp3 };
foreach(var item in list.Where(x => x.Name != "Important 2"))
{
item.SetMostImportant(false);
}
imp2.SetMostImportant(true);
Console.Write(list.FirstOrDefault(x => x.MostImportant == true).Name);
}
public class Important
{
public Important(string name)
{
Name = name;
}
public string Name { get; private set; }
public bool MostImportant { get; private set; }
public void SetMostImportant(bool val)
{
MostImportant = val;
}
}
}
I don't like this solution because:
MostImportant
is true for more than one objects without iterating.... and much more, but you got the idea.
public static Important MostImportant { get; private set; }
is a fine solution, and much better than
public bool MostImportant { get; private set; }
It's not uncommon to have a static property of the type that it's inside of when implementing "singleton" classes. I've written code that resembles this:
class MyClass
{
public static MyClass Instance { get; private set; }
public MyClass()
{
if (Instance == null)
{
Instance = this;
}
else
{
throw new Exception("MyClass already instantiated.");
}
}
}