Object InitializersObject initializers provide a way to assign values to any accessible fields or properties of an object at creation time without having to explicitly invoke a constructor.
Object initializers with named types
Here we use auto-implemented properties featured in Visual C# 3.0 to define a class. For details on auto-implemented properties, please check Auto-Implemented Properties (C# Programming Guide).
public class Point
{
public int X { get; set; }
public int Y { get; set; }
}
When we instantiate the objects of a Point class, we can use:
Point p = new Point();
p.X = 0;
p.Y = 1;
In Visual C# 3.0, there is a short way to achieve the same results:
// {X = 0, Y = 1} is field or property assignments
Point p = new Point { X = 0, Y = 1 };
In LINQ, we can use named object initializer like this:
The following example shows how we can use named object initializer with LINQ. The example assumes that an object contains many fields and methods related to a product, but we are only interested in creating a sequence of objects that contain the product name and the unit price.
var productInfos =
from p in products
select new { ProductName = p.ProductName, UnitPrice = p.UnitPrice };
Collection InitializersCollection Initializers are similar in concept to Object Initializers. They allow you to create and initialize a collection in one step. By using a collection initializer you do not have to specify multiple calls to the Add method of the class in your source code; the compiler adds the calls.
List<int> numbers = new List<int> { 1, 100, 100 };
In fact, it is the short form of the following:
List<int> numbers = new List<int>();
numbers.Add(1);
numbers.Add(10);
numbers.Add(100);
Note: To be able to use a Collection Initializer on an object, the object must satisfy these two requirements:
- It must implement the IEnumerable interface.
- It must have a public Add() method.
