c# marking class property as dirty

Question

The following is a simple example of an enum which defines the state of an object and a class which shows the implementation of this enum.

public enum Status         


        

Answer 1

When you really do want a dirty flag at the class level (or, for that matter, notifications) - you can use tricks like below to minimise the clutter in your properties (here showing both IsDirty and PropertyChanged, just for fun).

Obviously it is a trivial matter to use the enum approach (the only reason I didn't was to keep the example simple):

class SomeType : INotifyPropertyChanged {
    private int foo;
    public int Foo {
        get { return foo; }
        set { SetField(ref foo, value, "Foo"); }
    }

    private string bar;
    public string Bar {
        get { return bar; }
        set { SetField(ref bar, value, "Bar"); }
    }

    public bool IsDirty { get; private set; }
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
    protected void SetField(ref T field, T value, string propertyName) {
        if (!EqualityComparer.Default.Equals(field, value)) {
            field = value;
            IsDirty = true;
            OnPropertyChanged(propertyName);
        }
    }
    protected virtual void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName) {
        var handler = PropertyChanged;
        if (handler != null) {
            handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
        }
    }
}

You might also choose to push some of that into an abstract base class, but that is a separate discussion