coding style while accessing property for the first time and backing field member is null

Question

I am looking if there is elegant way to make sure when property is accessed first time, associated backing field is set. For example, I end up lot with below code paradigm to address this :

private Address _address;
        public Address Address
        {
            get
            {
                if (_address == null)
                {
                    _address = GetAddress();
                }return _address;
            }
        }  

Answer 1

Unless error prone or time consuming, I would suggest populating the property in the constructor. Otherwise, I suggest using Lazy<T> to do it, for thread safety:

public class MyClass
{
    private Address _address;

    public MyClass()
    {
        _address = GetAddress();
    }

    public Address Address {get {return _address;}}
}

Using Lazy<T>:

public class MyClass
{
    private Lazy<Address> _address;

    public MyClass()
    {
        _address = new Lazy<Address>(() => GetAddress());
    }

    public Address Address {get {return _address.Value;}}
}

Starting with c#6, you can have an auto-implemented property like this, but then you have to make the GetAddress() method static:

public Address Addgress {get;} = GetAddress();

That will translate to something like the first option I've shown - See SharpLab demo.