C# classes

[semerich]

Does anyone have an interest in having the ICE class's data members be generated in C# as properties instead of public fields? The advantage is is that you can drop a class object with properties into a property grid & easily view the data. This make debugging [realtime programs] easier. It would be a "nice to have" to have ZeroC implement this as an option [for C# & VB]

[michi]

I guess we could make this available as a metadata directive. I considered mapping to properties at one point, but couldn't see any advantage for a type whose code is generated.

Cheers,

Michi.

[semerich]

Having C# public properties instead of public fields is something that we can really benefit from, so I took a stab at it. below is the replacement VisitDataMember in "slice2cs\Gen.cpp file. It seems to work just fine, & the default functionality remains the same. Could this be added to your code baseline ? vb.net would be easy to do also.

THANKS
Scott Emerich
jscott.emerich@boeing.com


Slice::Gen::TypesVisitor::visitDataMember(const DataMemberPtr& p)
{
int baseTypes = 0;
bool isClass = false;
ContainedPtr cont = ContainedPtr::dynamicCast(p->container());
assert(cont);
if(StructPtr::dynamicCast(cont) && cont->hasMetaData("clr:class"))
{
baseTypes = DotNet::ICloneable;
}
else if(ExceptionPtr::dynamicCast(cont))
{
baseTypes = DotNet::ApplicationException;
}
else if(ClassDefPtr::dynamicCast(cont))
{
baseTypes = DotNet::ICloneable;
isClass = true;
}
_out << sp << nl;

string nameS = fixId(p->name(), baseTypes, isClass);
string ty = typeToString(p->type());
if (p->hasMetaData("clr:property") || cont->hasMetaData("clr:property"))
{
_out << "private " << ty << " _" << nameS << ";" << nl;
emitAttributes(p);
_out << "public " << ty << " " << nameS << nl;
_out << "{ get { return _" << nameS << "; }" << nl;
_out << " set { _" << nameS << " = value; } }" << nl;
}
else
{
emitAttributes(p);
_out << "public " << ty << " " << nameS << ";";
}
}

[michi]

Thanks for that! I'll add something like this for the next release.

Cheers,

Michi.