How do I create an immutable Class?

by

I think you’re on the right track –

  • all information injected into the class should be supplied in the constructor
  • all properties should be getters only
  • if a collection (or Array) is passed into the constructor, it should be copied to keep the caller from modifying it later
  • if you’re going to return your collection, either return a copy or a read-only version (for example, using ArrayList.ReadOnly or similar – you can combine this with the previous point and store a read-only copy to be returned when callers access it), return an enumerator, or use some other method/property that allows read-only access into the collection
  • keep in mind that you still may have the appearance of a mutable class if any of your members are mutable – if this is the case, you should copy away whatever state you will want to retain and avoid returning entire mutable objects, unless you copy them before giving them back to the caller – another option is to return only immutable “sections” of the mutable object – thanks to @Brian Rasmussen for encouraging me to expand this point

More Related Contents:

  1. Why .NET String is immutable? [duplicate]
  2. Why are C# structs immutable?
  3. Immutability of structs [duplicate]
  4. Are immutable arrays possible in .NET?
  5. How do I get the list of open file handles by process in C#?
  6. What does InitializeComponent() do, and how does it work in WPF?
  7. Is there any significant difference between using if/else and switch-case in C#?
  8. How to serialize/deserialize a custom collection with additional properties using Json.Net
  9. Converting a string to a class name
  10. How do I invert a colour?
  11. Why use the C# class System.Random at all instead of System.Security.Cryptography.RandomNumberGenerator?
  12. Am I misunderstanding LINQ to SQL .AsEnumerable()?
  13. When is optimization premature? [closed]
  14. Insert into C# with SQLCommand
  15. Double.TryParse or Convert.ToDouble – which is faster and safer?
  16. Class with indexer and property named “Item”
  17. Can the C# interactive window interact with my code?
  18. Select either a file or folder from the same dialog in .NET
  19. How to suppress a dialog box displayed by code that I can’t change?
  20. How do I do logging in C# without using 3rd party libraries? [closed]
  21. i have to access/commit/update SVN repository in WPF application using SVN API or libraries [closed]
  22. Ignoring a field during .NET JSON serialization; similar to [XmlIgnore]?
  23. How do you UrlEncode without using System.Web?
  24. How can I clear event subscriptions in C#?
  25. How do I do a left outer join with Dynamic Linq?
  26. How can I wrap text in a label using WPF?
  27. Getting the first and last day of a month, using a given DateTime object
  28. LINQ performance FAQ
  29. Initializer syntax
  30. Why does null need an explicit type cast here? [duplicate]

Leave a Comment