Using braces when creating a new class instance

Question

I have seen in a code a use of braces to directly inform the values of the variables of the concerned class when creating a new instance.

Exemple (see employee3)

class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        //I KNOW THIS.
        //Employee employee1 = new Employee(100, "Mike", 2000, 3);

        //I ALSO KNOW THIS.
        Employee employee2 = new Employee();
            employee2.ID = 101;
            employee2.Name = Henry;
            employee2.Salary = 3000;
            employee2.Experience = 4;

        //BUT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE SEEN THIS.
        Employee employee3 = new Employee()
            { ID = 102, Name = "John", Salary = 3000, Experience = 5 };
    }


class Employee
{
    //Employee(iD, name, salary, experience)
    //{
    //    ID = iD;
    //    Name = name;
    //    Salary = salary;
    //    Experience = experience;
    //}

    //Employee() { }

    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
    public int Salary { get; set; }
    public int Experience { get; set; }
}

What do these braces mean, what are they called, can they be otherwise useful...

Are you calling the braces parentheses? It's called an object initializer. They can also be used to initialize collections: `var x = new List { 0, 2, 4 };` — 15ee8f99-57ff-4f92-890c-b56153, May 10 '17 at 15:29
It's another syntax for exactly the same actions. Don't worry about it. `A a = new A(); a.field = 1;` can be written as `A a = new A() { field=1 }` You can read about it [here](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/articles/csharp/programming-guide/classes-and-structs/object-and-collection-initializers) — Sergey.quixoticaxis.Ivanov, May 10 '17 at 15:31
Even if you're using c# 6 you can initialize properties in the class definition https://csharp.today/c-6-features-auto-property-initializers/ — Gabriel Castillo Prada, May 10 '17 at 17:21

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 10 '17 at 15:31

They are used to initialise fields on the Employee object instance.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/articles/csharp/programming-guide/classes-and-structs/object-and-collection-initializers

Object initializers let you assign values to any accessible fields or properties of an object at creation time without having to invoke a constructor followed by lines of assignment statements.

Using braces when creating a new class instance

1 Answers1