Question

It seems like this question gets asked frequently, but having looked through all of them, I find I’m still without aid. I’m taking my first step into oop, and I need to create an object with an attribute “Products” that is an array of up to 7 possible objects of class “Product”. I just just barely understand the {get;set;} method, and am reading up on it, but I was hoping I could get some help with the syntax of what I’m trying to do here. I’m using C#. My code is below:

public class Submission 
{

    public Submission() {}
    public int SubmissionId {get;set;}

    public int CustId {get;set;}

    public int BroId {get;set;}

    public int Coverage {get;set;}

            public Array Products // what goes here? It's a mystery. 
} 

Answer 1

In this case, I think you don’t want an auto-implemented property. Instead, do it like this:

//backing store for your public property
private Product[] _products = new Product[7];

public Product[] Products { get {return _products;}}

and then in the constructor:

foreach(var item in _products) {item = new Product(); }

You could do this with a private setter rather than an explicit backing store, but I think this way is easier as far as setting up the size of the array goes.

Notice that I only provided a getter for the property. You don’t want a setter, as that would allow someone to replace your property with a whole new array. Just providing a getter will still allow someone to manipulate the property. Also, normally I would recommend a collection rather than an array for this, but since you want a fixed-size for the number of items an array might be a better fit.