CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#
Shazter
Shazter

Reputation: 305

Properties or Method for Dictionary

i read some posts about properties vs Method, but I'm not sure, which way is correct for my purpose.

Should I use properties to return the Dictionary with the UserData or should I use a Method, because is a Collection of data and of course exceptions are possible to caused by e.g. missing file

class UsersData
{
    public int UserID { get; set; }
    public string UserName { get; set; }
    public string UserPassWord { get; set; }
}

class Test
{
     public Dictionary<int, UsersData> Users
    {
        get
        {
            return ReadXMLDict(filename);
        }
        private set
        { }
    }

    public string filename { get; set; }



    public Test()
    {
    }

    private Dictionary<int, UsersData> ReadXMLDict(string filename)
    {
        Dictionary<int, UsersData> result;
        if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(filename))
        {
            var XDoc = XDocument.Load(filename).Element("UsersTable");
            result = XDoc
           .Descendants("Users")
           .ToDictionary(x => int.Parse(x.Element("UserID").Value),
             (x => new UsersData
             {
                 UserID = int.Parse(x.Element("UserID").Value),
                 UserName = x.Element("UserName").Value,
                 UserPassWord = x.Element("UserPassWord").Value

             }));
            return result;
        }
        else
        {
            return null;
        }
    }
}

Upvotes: 0

Views: 67

Answers (1)

Mat&#237;as Fidemraizer
Mat&#237;as Fidemraizer

Reputation: 64933

Properties are syntactic sugar. They're compiled into methods and they work the same way as methods (f.e. in your case filename property is compiled into two methods: get_filename, set_filename).

You can catch exceptions, handle them and many other things inside a setter or getter, because they're methods.

BTW, if getting the data and filling the whole dictionary requires input parameters, you should stay with a method as is (no properties!).

In the other hand, if there're many methods that could require a common parameter, maybe it's fine that you define a property to hold that parameter and later use it in some other property or method:

public class A
{
     public string Param1 { get; set; }

     public string PropertyA 
     {
          get 
          {
               // Uses "Param1"

               return ...;
          }
     } 

     public void Method1()
     {
          // Uses "Param1" somewhere...
     }

     public void Method2()
     {
          // Uses "Param1" somewhere...
     }

     public void MethodN()
     {
          // Uses "Param1" somewhere...
     }
}

Upvotes: 1

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