What's the best way to return the name of the current property?

Question

This code shows a property that calls out to a method to get that property's name:

public string Foo { get { return MyName(); } }

string MyName([System.Runtime.CompilerServices.CallerMemberName] 
    string propertyName = null)
{
    return propertyName;
}

Is there a better way?

And, why would you ever need this? You already know the name. YOU MADE IT. — Sam Axe, Dec 18 '12 at 16:58
possible duplicate of [Getting Property Name in C#](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10552712/getting-property-name-in-c-sharp) — Henk Holterman, Dec 18 '12 at 17:00
Potential duplicate? http://stackoverflow.com/q/4364888/1220971 — Bridge, Dec 18 '12 at 17:00

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:09

That arguably is the best way as of .Net 4.5 having replaced the previous .net call such as

NotifyPropertyChanged("CustomerName");

where the user had to hard code that information. Now in .Net 4.5 the call looks like this:

NotifyPropertyChanged();

thanks to

void NotifyPropertyChanged([CallerMemberName] string propertyName = null)

See Implementing INotifyPropertyChanged - does a better way exist? for other strategies.

What's the best way to return the name of the current property?

1 Answers1