Question

So I have a class:

public class Person
{
    public string Firstname { get; set; }
    public string Lastname { get; set; }

    public Person()
    {
        AddPerson();
    }

    private void AddPerson()
    {
        string fn = this.Firstname;
        string ln = this.Lastname;
        // Do something with these values
        // Probably involves adding to a database
    }

}

And I have some code that will instantiate an object and add it to the database, returning the the object of type Person:

Person me = new Person()
{
    Firstname = "Piers",
    Lastname = "Karsenbarg"
};

However, when I debug this, and get to the AddPerson() method, the properties this.Firstname and this.Lastname don’t have anything in them (in this case are empty).

Where am I going wrong?

Answer 1

This is because properties are assigned after constructor is called. Basicaly, this:

Person me = new Person()
{
    Firstname = "Piers",
    Lastname = "Karsenbarg"
};

is the same as:

Person me = new Person();
me.Firstname = "Piers";
me.Lastname = "Karsenbarg";

Only difference here is syntax. In your case you may want to pass those variables via parametrized constructor (new Person("Piers", "Karsenbarg")).