Question

I am writing a WPF application that searches, parses and writes files based on some minimal user input. I have a method call (to a method in another class) in my mainwindow class that requires a number of different pieces of information parsed from two separate files. Currently, I have another method that parses the source files and returns an array of the parsed data for another function of the application. Within that method, I have some public variables to store the necessary info for the first call. This is the only way I can figure how to access those items without writing separate methods to search the parsed data for each individual piece of info I have attached some code to help clarify my current situation:

//From mainwindow.xaml.cs

private void button1_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
        string[] path = ff.Search(fw.sysName, fw.design, fw.partNumber);//From FileFinder class
        string[] parsedData = fp.Parse(path);//From FileProcessor class
        string[] summary = fw.SummaryWriter(parsedData, fw.masterList);//From FileWriter class
        Output.Text = "";
        foreach (string str in summaryvalues)
        {
            Output.Text += (str + "\n");
        }
    }

The variables used in ff.Search() and fw.SummaryWriter() are called from FileWriter.cs:

   class FileWriter
   {

    public string sysName;
    public string design;
    public string partNumber;
    public List<string> masterList = new List<string>();

    public string[] MasterWriter(string input, int source)
    {
          //Do stuff. The data for the public variables is mined from this method.

    }

    public string[] SummaryWriter(string[] parsedData, List<string> moduleMasterList)
    {
          //Do stuff
    }
}

The question I have is simply, how do I access those variables without making them public?

Answer 1

First, rather than having public fields how about encapsulating them in public properties that expose private fields? Example:

private string somePrivateField;
public string SomePrivateField
{
    get
    {
        return this.somePrivateField;
    }
    set
    {
        this.somePrivateField = value;
    }
}

See this site for info about properties

Second, when i run into methods that may need to return multiple values, you can either make out parameters to the method or encapsulate the return values into a class of their own and just return an instance of that class:

public void SomeMethod(int inputParameter, out int outvar1, out int outvar2)
{
...
}

See this site for the out keyword

or

public SomeMethodOutput SomeMethod(int inputParameter)
{
...
return new SomeMethodOutput(number1, number2);
}

where SomeMethodOutput is a class with two properties.