C# Lazy Loaded Automatic Properties

Question

In C#,

Is there a way to turn an automatic property into a lazy loaded automatic property with a specified default value?

Essentially, I am trying to turn th

Answer 1

Here's my implementation of a solve to your problem. Basically the idea is a property that will be set by a function at first access and subsequent accesses will yield the same return value as the first.

public class LazyProperty
{
    bool _initialized = false;
    T _result;

    public T Value(Func fn)
    {
        if (!_initialized)
        {
            _result = fn();
            _initialized = true;
        }
        return _result;
    }
 }

Then to use:

LazyProperty _eyeColor = new LazyProperty();
public Color EyeColor
{ 
    get 
    {
        return _eyeColor.Value(() => SomeCPUHungryMethod());
    } 
}

There is of course the overhead of passing the function pointer around, but it does the job for me and I don't notice too much overhead compared to running the method over and over again.