Question

I got some advice about constructors but now I have many. Can I simplify these with a function or some other way? Here’s my class?

public class ContentViewModel
    {
        public ContentViewModel() { }
        public ContentViewModel(Content content)
        {
            this.Content = content;
        }
        public ContentViewModel(string pk)
        {
            this.Content = new Content();
            this.Content.PartitionKey = pk;
            this.Content.Created = DateTime.Now;
        }
        public ContentViewModel(string pk, string rk)
        {
            this.Content = new Content();
            this.Content.PartitionKey = pk;
            this.Content.RowKey = rk;
            this.Content.Created = DateTime.Now;
        }
        public ContentViewModel(string pk, string rk, string user)
        {
            this.Content = new Content();
            this.Content.PartitionKey = pk;
            this.Content.RowKey = rk;
            this.Content.Created = DateTime.Now;
            this.Content.CreatedBy = user;
        }
        public Content Content { get; set; }
        public bool UseRowKey { 
            get {
                return this.Content.PartitionKey.Substring(2, 2) == "05" ||
                       this.Content.PartitionKey.Substring(2, 2) == "06";
            }
        }
        public string TempRowKey { get; set; }

    }

I’m using c# 4. Someone said about named and optional arguments. Will that help me?

Answer 1

Try this:

    public ContentViewModel() { }
    public ContentViewModel(Content content)
    {
        this.Content = content;
    }
    public ContentViewModel(string pk): this(new Content)
    {
        this.Content.PartitionKey = pk;
        this.Content.Created = DateTime.Now;
    }
    public ContentViewModel(string pk, string rk): this(pk)
    {
        this.Content.RowKey = rk;
    }
    public ContentViewModel(string pk, string rk, string user): this(pk, rk)
    {
        this.Content.CreatedBy = user;
    }

or you could try:

    public ContentViewModel(Content content = null, string pk = null, 
                            string rk = null, string user = null)
    {
        this.Content = content ?? new Content();
        if (pk != null) this.Content.PartitionKey = pk;
        if (rk != null) this.Content.RowKey = pk;
        if (user != null) this.Content.CreatedBy = user;
        this.Content.Created = DateTime.Now;
    }        

With this you can call your constructor setting or missing any of your params, providing them from left to right or using named params as suggested by @Robert Harvey.
Examples:

var c = new ContentViewModel();
var c = new ContentViewModel(pk: 'ppp', user: 'marco');
var c = new ContentViewModel(null, 'pk', null, 'marco');