4.8. Auto-Implemented Properties

In Fig. 4.7, we created a GradeBook class with a private courseName instance variable and a public property CourseName to enable client code to access the courseName. When you look at the CourseName property’s definition (Fig. 4.7, lines 11–21), notice that the get accessor simply returns private instance variable courseName’s value and the set accessor simply assigns a value to the instance variable—no other logic appears in the accessors. For such cases, C# provides automatically implemented properties (also known as auto-implemented properties). With an auto-implemented property, the C# compiler creates a private instance variable, and the get and set accessors for returning and modifying the private instance variable. Unlike a user-defined property, an auto-implemented property, must have both a get and a set accessor. This enables you to implement the property trivially, which is handy when you’re first designing a class. If you later decide to include other logic in the get or set accessors, you can simply modify the property’s implementation. To use an auto-implemented property in the GradeBook class of Fig. 4.7, you can replace the private instance variable at line 8 and the property at lines 11–21 with the following code:

public string CourseName { get; set; }