c# marking class property as dirty

Question

The following is a simple example of an enum which defines the state of an object and a class which shows the implementation of this enum.

public enum StatusEnum
{
    Clean = 0,
    Dirty = 1,
    New = 2,
    Deleted = 3,
    Purged = 4
}


public class Example_Class
{
    private StatusEnum _Status = StatusEnum.New;

    private long _ID;
    private string _Name;

    public StatusEnum Status
    {
        get { return _Status; }
        set { _Status = value; }
    }

    public long ID
    {
        get { return _ID; }
        set { _ID = value; }
    }

    public string Name
    {
        get { return _Name; }
        set { _Name = value; }
    }
}

when populating the class object with data from the database, we set the enum value to "clean". with the goal of keeping most of the logic out of the presentation layer, how can we set the enum value to "dirty" when a property is changed.

i was thinking something along the lines of;

public string Name
{
    get { return _Name; }
    set 
    {
        if (value != _Name)
        {
               _Name = value; 
           _Status = StatusEnum.Dirty;
        }
    }   
}

in the setter of each property of the class.

does this sound like a good idea, does anyone have any better ideas on how the dirty flag can be assigned without doing so in the presentation layer.

Answer 1

When you really do want a dirty flag at the class level (or, for that matter, notifications) - you can use tricks like below to minimise the clutter in your properties (here showing both IsDirty and PropertyChanged, just for fun).

Obviously it is a trivial matter to use the enum approach (the only reason I didn't was to keep the example simple):

class SomeType : INotifyPropertyChanged {
    private int foo;
    public int Foo {
        get { return foo; }
        set { SetField(ref foo, value, "Foo"); }
    }

    private string bar;
    public string Bar {
        get { return bar; }
        set { SetField(ref bar, value, "Bar"); }
    }

    public bool IsDirty { get; private set; }
    public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;
    protected void SetField<T>(ref T field, T value, string propertyName) {
        if (!EqualityComparer<T>.Default.Equals(field, value)) {
            field = value;
            IsDirty = true;
            OnPropertyChanged(propertyName);
        }
    }
    protected virtual void OnPropertyChanged(string propertyName) {
        var handler = PropertyChanged;
        if (handler != null) {
            handler(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
        }
    }
}

You might also choose to push some of that into an abstract base class, but that is a separate discussion