Auto-Implemented properties comes to Visual Basic 2010

(Note: This blog post was originally published under my old domain(codesmiles.com), here. Web Archive link.

(This post is part of my Visual Studio 2010 series)

In C# we can create properties for classes in simple way by just specifying the below code, this option is called auto-implemented property, as the implementation is taken care by the compiler.[more]

public int Price { get; set; }

In Visual Basic we don’t have such simple option to create properties, hence to create a simple class we have to write the below code..

Class Client
    Private _Code As String
    Public Property Code() As String
        Get
            Return _Code
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _Code = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Private _Name As String
    Public Property Name() As String
        Get
            Return _Name
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _Name = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Private _CreditLimit As Single = 2000
    Public Property CreditLimit() As Single
        Get
            Return _CreditLimit
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As Single)
            _CreditLimit = value
        End Set
    End Property
End Class

But in Visual Basic 2010(in Visual Studio 2010) we can write the below code instead of the above..

Class Client
    Public Property Code As String
    Public Property Name As String
    Public Property CreditLimit As Single = 2000
End Class

See how much simplicity and clarity auto-implemented properties can give to your classes when compared to your manually-implemented properties.

Most of the business entity classes I have seen in projects have such simple properties, I mean, only few require some custom logic to be included in the property method, like the one below..

Private _CreditLimit As Single = 2000
Public Property CreditLimit() As Single
    Get
        Return _CreditLimit
    End Get
    Set(ByVal value As Single)
        If value > 5000 Then
            Throw New Exception("CreditLimit cannot be greater than 5000")
        End If

        _CreditLimit = value
    End Set
End Property

So if you are a Visual Basic coder you can start creating your classes, particularly your business entities with such simple code in Visual Basic 2010.