Property

To design a C# property you have to design an attribute with the <<Property>> stereotype.

When you do so, another attribute with the <<PropertyImplementation>> stereotype is automatically created, it is displayed with an underscore sign in the list of attributes. The corresponding getter and setter operations are also automatically created.

You can get rid of the implementation attribute.

If you remove both getter and setter operations, the attribute no longer has the <<Property>> stereotype.

When you define a <<Property>> attribute, the attribute changeability and the getter/setter operations are tightly related as explained in the following table:

Operations	Property attribute changeability
If you keep both getter and setter operations	Property is Changeable
If you remove the setter operation of a changeable property	Property becomes Read-only
If you remove the getter operation of a changeable property	Property becomes Write-only

On the other hand, if you modify the property changeability, operations will reflect this change, for example, if you turn a changeable property into a read-only property, the setter operation is automatically removed.

In the following example, class Employee contains 2 properties. The Setter operation has been removed for property TimeReport:

{
 public class Employee
 {
  private int _Function;
  private int _TimeReport;
  // Property Function
  private int Function
  {
   get
   {
     return _Function;
    }
   set
   {
     if (this._Function != value)
      this._Function = value;
    }
  }
  // Property TimeReport
  private int TimeReport
  {
   get
   {
     return _TimeReport;
    }
  }
 }

The following table lists the different property modifiers supported in PowerDesigner:

C# property modifiers	PowerDesigner equivalent
Abstract	Abstract extended attribute set to True
Extern	Extern extended attribute set to True
Override	Override extended attribute set to True
Sealed	Sealed extended attribute set to True
Unsafe	Unsafe extended attribute set to True
Virtual	Virtual extended attribute set to True