Property declaration

<access modifier> <type> <property name> 

The access modifier determines who can manipulate this data. Properties can be scoped as public, private, protected, or internal.

The type determines what kind of type it can accept or return.

The property name declares the name used to access the property.

Accessors

Setting the Name property for the Customer class is done through the set accessor, defined using the set keyword.

Similarly, the get keyword creates a get accessor to encapsulate the logic to perform when clients retrieve the value of the property.

Above, the simple set accessor and get accessor make property behave very much like a simple field. That may not be the desired behavior. If not, we can add logic to check the value passed into the set accessor:

public string Name
       {
           set { 
                 if (value != null)
                    this._name = value;
               }
           get {                   
                 if (this._name != null)
                    return this._name;
                 else
                    return "John Doe";
               }
       }

Above, if the client requests to set the value to null, the set accessor does not change the field. Also, if the _name field hasn't yet been set, the get accessor returns a default value.

Using properties

Clients can use property much like they use simple class fields:

Customer customer = new Customer();

// this will not set the data.
customer.Name = "";

// since the field is not yet set, this will print out: "John Doe"
System.Console.WriteLine(customer.Name);

customer.Name = "Marissa";
System.Console.WriteLine(customer.Name);

The above code prints the following:

John Doe
Marissa