I have code that looks like this:
itemView.Question.AnswersJSON = itemView.Answer.ToJSONString();
itemView.Question.Modified = DateTime.Now;
itemView.Question.ModifiedBy = User.Identity.Name
plus many more lines where I set values for the Question
class that is inside the itemView
.
I think the answer is "not possible" but just putting it out as a question in case anyone knows a way.
What I would like to do is to find a way to simplify this code without repeating itemView.Question
in every line.
If Question
is a class
(not a struct
), then you could assign it to a local variable, and edit that:
Question q = itemView.Question;
q.AnswersJSON = itemView.Answer.ToJSONString();
q.Modified = DateTime.Now;
q.ModifiedBy = User.Identity.Name
You won't even have to assign q
back to itemView.Question
.
This is because classes in C# are reference types. If you assign an instance of a reference type to a local variable, or pass it to a function, then changes to that instance will be reflected everywhere you have a reference to that same instance.
Edit
Note that the situation might be a bit murky if Question
is a property of itemView
, rather than a field. Depending on how it is implemented, you might have to assign q
back to Question
. In such a case, this code is still much preferred to avoid calling the Question
property's getter method repeatedly.