There must be a better way to enter lots of strongly typed properties in a class

[MartyK2007]

Sorry dave, I'm not quite following how that would work can you give me a snippet I dont see how it makes adifference if its one Foo object or a collection of foo objects. Foo.Name still needs to get to a varaible or internal collection I have just been reading up on intellisense code snippets that is in effect a template for my class and that may help thanks Martin

life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte

[MartyK2007]

hi, I am on version 2 I think this is the same as the array solution it would look something like public property Name as string get return list(0).Myproperty1 ..........etc I need to relate property Name to Index position 0 in this case. In my current development I will need about 30 of these clases averaging 20 of these properties per class. The worst class will have 80 or so properties. I am really looking for something like public property Name as string get return ("Name") 'where is some classed object ............... I could use collection but writing back changes is upgly (removing the item then adding it again - yuk) I could use arrayLists as in return ArrayList.BinarySearch("Name") but I have to keep the arraylist sorted and am wondering how fast the binarysearch will be compared to the collection name index. Although knowing microsoft its probably the same code. and then I am looking for some quick n painless way to actually type in these classes into visual studio. Thanks Martin

life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte

[Dave Kreskowiak]

For the Person:

Public Class Person
Private _Name As String
Private _Title As String

Public Property Name As String
...
Public Property Title As String
...

End Class

For the Collection of Persons (simplified)

Public Class PersonsCollection
Implements IList, ICollection, IEnumerable

Private Persons As Person()
Private PersonsCount As Integer

Public Sub New()
End Sub

Public Overridable Sub Add(ByVal person As Person)
   ...
End Sub

...

End Class

Of course, in 2005, you can skip the collection and just use a typed collection instead:

Dim Persons As New List(Of Person)

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
     2006, 2007

[MartyK2007]

Hi my problem is in here Public Class Person Private _Name As String Private _Title As String Public Property Name As String get return _name set (value..) _name = value In this property I have enterd Name once and _Name twice. now this is fine for one or two properties but when you have 80 of these properties in a class and you need to create many classes then typing it in becomes painfull. I think the code snippet will help but I was hoping for some kind of generator where I could key in a list and have a class created for me with those properties set from the list. End Class thanks Martin

life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte

[Dave Kreskowiak]

MartyK2007 wrote:

In this property I have enterd Name once and _Name twice. now this is fine for one or two properties but when you have 80 of these properties in a class and you need to create many classes then typing it in becomes painfull.

A generator or two might exist, but I don't know of any. Try Googling for "VB.NET Property code generation".

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
     2006, 2007

[Taylor]

Write another program that gets the name of the properties ,adds them to a list and finally makes the code for you to add to your class. The function below may help you Function Generate(ByVal mc As Collection) As String Dim str As String For i As Integer = 1 To mc.Count str &= "Public Property " & mc(i) & "() As String" * vbCrLf & _ "Get" & vbCrLf & "Return MyDataCol(""" & mc(i) & """)" & vbCrLf & _ "End Get" & vbCrLf & "Set(ByVal value As String)" & vbCrLf & _ "MyDataCol.Remove(""" & mc(i) & """)" & vbCrLf & "MyDataCol.Add(value, """ & mc(i) & """)" & _ vbCrLf & "End Set" & vbCrLf & "End Property" & vbCrLf Next Return str End Function where mc is a collection of property names

A.E.K

[Dave Kreskowiak]

Nah. I hate copy and paste coding and refuse to use such a technique in an addin. I'd much rather have the addin write, and if need be, rewrite the property code for me, directly in the CodeDom, when I change the member variables.

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
     2006, 2007

[MartyK2007]

you can rewrite the property?? Is this a special VB way or "Just" writing a program to read in the .vb file and change it then save the new file overwriting the old one?? thanks Martin

life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte

[Dave Kreskowiak]

No. This would be a VS AddIn (not for Express though!) that manipulates the document object model that is your code, otherwise know as CodeDom. Search for that term on MSDN and you'll come up with all kinds of information.

A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
     2006, 2007

[MartyK2007]

wow I never knew that existed NET is getting bigger and bigger - sigh - brain overload!! Thanks for that - very interesting Martin

life is a bowl of cherries go on take a byte