Question

I’m using Mvc3 and NHibernate
I have a class called Activation code like following:

public virtual int LoginAccountId { get; set; }
protected virtual string ActivatedCode { get; set; }
protected virtual DateTime ActivationDate { get; set; }

I want to access this field in a controller lik

ActivationCode code=new ActivationCode();
code.ActivatedCode="abc";

but not able to get it. why?

Answer 1

The property is protected which means you can access it only from inside the class or inside one of it’s inheritances.

public class ActivationCode{
    public virtual int LoginAccountId { get; set; }
    protected virtual string ActivatedCode { get; set; }
    protected virtual DateTime ActivationDate { get; set; }
    
    public void Foo(){
        var x = this.ActivatedCode; // Valid
    }

}

public class Foo{
    new ActivationCode().ActivatedCode //Invalid access
}

You can change the properties from protected to public just like with LoginAccountId.

Read MSDN article about protected:

The protected keyword is a member access modifier. A protected member is accessible from within the class in which it is declared, and from within any class derived from the class that declared this member.

A protected member of a base class is accessible in a derived class only if the access takes place through the derived class type. For example, consider the following code segment:

Update:

The ActivationCode class should look like this:

public class ActivationCode
{
    public virtual int LoginAccountId { get; set; }
    public virtual string ActivatedCode { get; set; }
    public virtual DateTime ActivationDate { get; set; }
}