On properties class property change { get; set; }

Question

I am having class like this:

public class MyClass<T> 
{
    public T Tag 
    { 
        get => JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(_Tag); 
        set => _Tag = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(value); 
    }

    private string _Tag { get; set; }

    public void Update()
    {
        Console.WriteLine(_Tag);
    }
}

As you can see my main property is string _Tag and i need it since i am storing it into my database as jsonstring since it doesn't have same type.

When i do something like this:

MyClass<SecondClass> mc = new MyClass<SecondClass>();
SecondClass sc = new SecondClass() { someProp = "asd" };
mc.Tag = sc;
mc.Update();

then console will write what i expected to write and that is jsonString with given values of someProp: asd and it does that since Tag set is triggered when i set value to it but problem is when i do it like this:

MyClass<SecondClass> mc = new MyClass<SecondClass>();
SecondClass sc = new SecondClass() { someProp = "asd" };
mc.Tag = sc;
mc.Update();
mc.Tag.someProp = "ddd";
mc.Update();

this time, both mc.Update() will write same output (with asd ) since second time i haven't set property but changed value of it's child class and because of that my _Tag doesn't change.

So how can i overcome this?

Answer 1

So how can i overcome this?

Store the object, not it's point-in-time serialized form, and serialize it in Update :

public class MyClass 
{
    public T Tag {get; set;}

    public void Update()
    {
        Console.WriteLine(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(Tag));
    }
}

In general there's not a way to return a copy or derived instance from a getter, change it's properties, and have it automatically be reflected in the source of the generated instance. Alternatively you could manually set it back:

var tag = mc.Tag;
tag.someProp = "ddd";
mv.Tag = tag;

Obviously it's uglier than doing it in one-line, but it's the only way to call both the getter and the setter. You could genericize it, make it a class method (eg SetSomeProp()) that encapsulates this logic, etc.