How can I access the backing variable of an auto-implemented property?

Question

In the past we declared properties like this:

public class MyClass {     private int _age;      public int Age     {           get{ return _age;  }           set{ _age = value; }     } } 

Now we can do:

public class MyClass {     public int Age {get; set;}  } 

My question is, how can I access the private variable that is created automatically using this notation?

I would rather access the private variable and not the public accessor 'Age'. Is there a default notation to access the private variable, or it is just not possible?

Answer 1

The aim of the new automatic properties is to reduce the amount of boilerplate code you need to write when you just have a simple property that doesn't need any special logic in the get or the set.

If you want to access the private member that these properties use, that's usually for a few reasons:

• You need to more than just a simple get/set - in this case, you should just avoid using automatic properties for this member.
• You want to avoid the performance hit of going through the get or set and just use the member directly - in this case, I'd be surprised if there really was a performance hit. The simple get/set members are very very easy to inline, and in my (admittedly limited) testing I haven't found a difference between using the automatic properties and accessing the member directly.

• You only want to have public read access (i.e. just a 'get') and the class write to the member directly - in this case, you can use a private set in your automatic property. i.e.

  public class MyClass {     public int Age {get; private set;}  }

This usually covers most the reasons for wanting to directly get to the backing field used by the automatic properties.