.NET Tip: Data Encapsulation: Using Properties Instead of Public Variables Washington DC

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Originally published at Internet.com

I have run across some old code recently where some classes exposed public variables directly to the outside world. Even though the code works, it is very fragile. The code looked something like this: public class Person { public string Name; public int Age; }

A much better practice is to make class variables private and expose them through public properties, thus encapsulating the details of your implementation. This brings several benefits, including that ability to override the property in derived classes or to easily add validation logic when the property value is set. You also can create calculated properties whose values are determined only when they are accessed. A version of the Person class using properties might look like this: public class Person { private string _Name; private int _Age; public string Name { get { return _Name; } set { _Name = value; } } public int Age { get { return _Age; } set { _Age = value; } } }

As you can see, using properties does take several more lines of code than exposing public variables. The cost, though, is well worth the benefit to your application. If you are using Visual Studio 2008, you can use the new support for the automatic properties to gain the benefit of properties with syntax that is very similar to using public variables. Here is the Person class in Visual Studio 2008 using automatic properties: public class Person { public string Name { get; set; } public int Age { get; set; } }

In the long run, I think you will find that using properties makes your classes more stable and easier to extend.

About the Author

Jay Miller is a Software Engineer with Electronic Tracking Systems, a company dedicated to robbery prevention, apprehension, and recovery based in Carrollton, Texas. Jay has been working with .NET since the release of the first beta and is co-author of Learn Microsoft Visual Basic.Net In a Weekend. Jay can be reached via email at jmiller@sm-ets.com.