Question

I’m making a little program that will crawl my hard drive and present a list of file found in a given drive.

My idea is to have a base File class, and implement Picture.cs, Video.cs and Document.cs classes inherited from the File.cs class.

Here’s my code:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace SharpLibrary_MediaManager
{
    public abstract class File
    {
        public string name;
        public string fileType;
        public int size;
        public DateTime creationDate;
        public DateTime modificationDate;        
    }
}

Should I declare the short hand code for each attribute like this:

public string name { get; set; }

Any guidance will be helpful. Thank you. 🙂

Edit:

I mean literally replacing this line:

public string name;

with this line:

public string name { get; set; }

Answer 1

First, “attributes” is not the correct terminolgy here. When you declare a member of a class that has get and/or set defined (formally known as “accessors”), you are defining a property. Properties are a convenient way to expose values of private fields because you can add logic to the getting and setting mechanims.

Second, when you declare a member name as you’ve done via

public string name { get; set; } 

the compiler will expand that into the following:

private string _name;
public string name {
    get {
        return _name;
    }
    set {
        _name = value;
    }
}

That is, the compiler will automatically create a backing field for you and define the accessors. These are called “automatic properties” (for the people)¹.

Third, you should never² publically expose fields. So, if you want to expose the string name as part of your public interface it is better to do it as a property. First, it provides better encapsulation. Second, it can be declared virtual and overridden in dervied classes. Third, you can have custom logic. Fourth, you can have different levels of accessibly between the reading and writing mechanisms on properties but you can not on a field.

Fourth, per accepted naming convetions, public properties should be named with CamelCase so that you should prefer Name instead of name.

¹: Sorry, bad joke that I’ve been waiting a long time to make.

²: Almost never.