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

Apart from the advice of 'consider making your type immutable', here's something I wrote up (and got Jon and Marc to teach me something along the way)

public class Example_Class
{    // snip
     // all properties are public get and private set

     private Dictionary m_PropertySetterMap;

     public Example_Class()
     {
        m_PropertySetterMap = new Dictionary();
        InitializeSettableProperties();
     }
     public Example_Class(long id, string name):this()
     {   this.ID = id;    this.Name = name;   }

     private void InitializeSettableProperties()
     {
        AddToPropertyMap("ID",  value => { this.ID = value; });
        AddToPropertyMap("Name", value => { this.Name = value; }); 
     }
     // jump thru a hoop because it won't let me cast an anonymous method to an Action/Delegate
     private void AddToPropertyMap(string sPropertyName, Action setterAction)
     {   m_PropertySetterMap.Add(sPropertyName, setterAction);            }

     public void SetProperty(string propertyName, T value)
     {
        (m_PropertySetterMap[propertyName] as Action).Invoke(value);
        this.Status = StatusEnum.Dirty;
     }
  }

You get the idea.. possible improvements: Use constants for PropertyNames & check if property has really changed. One drawback here is that

obj.SetProperty("ID", 700);         // will blow up int instead of long
obj.SetProperty("ID", 700);   // be explicit or use 700L