Question

I’ve been reviewing the PRISM toolkit and I find many examples where they declare a public property with empty getters/setters yet they can still set the property of the instantiated class. How/why is this possible?

    public class ShellPresenter
    {
        public ShellPresenter(IShellView view)
        {
            View = view;

        }

        public IShellView View { get; private set; }
    }

//calling code
ShellPresenter sp = new ShellPresenter();

//Why is this allowed?
    sp.View = someView;

Answer 1

They’re using C# auto properties. It’s a convenience whereby the compiler generates the backing field for you. private set means that the property is read-only from outside the class. So, if sp.View = someView; is being used outside of the class then it will result in a compiler error.