Question

I am getting into C# and I am having this issue:

namespace MyDataLayer
{
    namespace Section1
    {
        public class MyClass
        {
            public class MyItem
            {
                public static string Property1{ get; set; }
            }
            public static MyItem GetItem()
            {
                MyItem theItem = new MyItem();
                theItem.Property1 = "MyValue";
                return theItem;
            }
        }
     }
 }

I have this code on a UserControl:

using MyDataLayer.Section1;

public class MyClass
{
    protected void MyMethod
    {
        MyClass.MyItem oItem = new MyClass.MyItem();
        oItem = MyClass.GetItem();
        someLiteral.Text = oItem.Property1;
    }
}

Everything works fine, except when I go to access Property1. The intellisense only gives me “Equals, GetHashCode, GetType, and ToString” as options. When I mouse over the oItem.Property1, Visual Studio gives me this explanation:

MemberMyDataLayer.Section1.MyClass.MyItem.Property1.getcannot be accessed with an instance reference, qualify it with a type name instead

I am unsure of what this means, I did some googling but wasn’t able to figure it out.

Answer 1

In C#, unlike VB.NET and Java, you can’t access static members with instance syntax. You should do:

MyClass.MyItem.Property1

to refer to that property or remove the static modifier from Property1 (which is what you probably want to do). For a conceptual idea about what static is, see my other answer.