C#: Give your object a Default Property

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C#: Give your object a Default Property

published 1 year, 5 months ago, submitted by

crpietschmann 1 year, 5 months ago

pietschsoft.com — I've seen/used objects within the .NET Framework that have default properties (ie: SqlDataReader, System.Collections.Generic.List). Now how exactly do I give my own custom object type a default property?

9 comments | category:

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Comments:

I don't get it- why's that peoperty a "default" property and not just a simple property? What's so special about it?

posted by marcoow 1 year, 5 months ago

The default property contains the 'this' keyword:

public Person this[int index]
{
get { return _people[index]; }
set { _people[index] = value; }
}

This allows you to access a person as follows:

club[0].Name = "John";

instead of

club.People[0].Name = "Joe";

posted by

gavinjoyce 1 year, 5 months ago

But that's an indexer... where did the name "Default property" come from?

posted by luciolucio 1 year, 5 months ago

BAAARRRR! You fail, default != indexer. Sorry, try again.

posted by

yesthatmcgurk 1 year, 5 months ago

Hey mr. Troll, very nice and intelligent comment, thank you so much. How about explaining the difference now?

posted by luciolucio 1 year, 5 months ago

Thought so...

posted by luciolucio 1 year, 5 months ago

well, maybe the author is coming from VB.NET because the indexer is specified by using the "Default" keyword. maybe?

posted by MarkoBarko 1 year, 5 months ago

Sorry for the confusion. The reason I called it a Default Property is because Microsoft has called it that in MSDN. Therefore, I have changed the title of my post to more accurately reflect what I've written about. Sorry for any confusion that may have been caused.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/2b6akew6(VS.71).aspx

posted by

crpietschmann 1 year, 5 months ago

That article says "The C# equivalent of a default Item property is an indexer." So it's the same after all. Thanks crpietschmann.

posted by luciolucio 1 year, 5 months ago