Change The Default Value of Boolean

Question

I'm writing an application, where I have quite a lot Properties of Type Boolean defined:

    private bool kajmak = true;
    public bool Kajmak
    {
        get { return kajmak ; }
        set { kajmak = value; FirePropertyChanged(() => Kajmak); }
    }

As you see, I set kajmak to true at the beginning..-the reason is nonrelevant-. (You might know that the default value of a bool variable is false).

Now, is there a way, to change the default value of a bool to true? So I would write:

private bool kajmak; //kajmak = true

instead of

private bool kajmak = true;

What could I do to achieve this?

I don't believe you can change this. Just keep doing what you're doing. — Corey Ogburn
– Corey Ogburn, Commented Nov 9, 2012 at 14:59
Don't do it, it's more trouble than it's worth, don't even think about doing it. — Davio
– Davio, Commented Nov 9, 2012 at 15:00
Curious why this was downvoted. Admittedly, it's a bad practice to want to do this, but the question itself was fine. — Jerad Rose
– Jerad Rose, Commented Nov 9, 2012 at 15:30

Adam Diament · Accepted Answer · 2016-08-03 08:02:14Z

83

C Sharp 6.0 has introduced a nice new way to do this:

 public bool YourBool { get; set; } = true;

This is equivalent to the old way of:

    private bool _yourBool = true;

    public bool YourBool 
    {
        get { return _yourBool; }
        set { _yourBool = value; }
    }

see this article http://blogs.msdn.com/b/csharpfaq/archive/2014/11/20/new-features-in-c-6.aspx

edited Aug 3, 2016 at 8:02

answered Jan 11, 2016 at 10:51

Adam Diament

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Comments

Davio · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-09 15:01:57Z

27

Because booleans are false by default, I use positive forms in my names, like IsInitialized, HasSomething etc. which I want to be false by default until I explicitly set them.

If you find you need something to be true by default, maybe you need to rename your variable so it makes more sense when the default is false.

answered Nov 9, 2012 at 15:01

Davio

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2 Comments

Joe Phillips Over a year ago

I've always done this as well, and then I realized it's kind of a silly argument when I came across a scenario where I want the positive form to be true by default. That basically reverses this argument :)

Davio Over a year ago

Well, you can always set them to true in your constructor. :)

Alexandre Lima · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-10 14:04:50Z

12

In service:

public bool Kajmak { get; set; } = true;

answered Jul 10, 2017 at 14:04

Alexandre Lima

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Comments

Justin Niessner · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-09 15:01:13Z

4

No. There's no way to change the default value assigned by .NET. Your best bet is to either assign the appropriate default in the private member:

private book kajmak = false;

Or use the Constructor like you're supposed to and assign the class defaults there:

public class SomeClass
{
    public SomeClass()
    {
        Kajmak = false;
    }

    public book Kajmak { get; set; }
}

answered Nov 9, 2012 at 15:01

Justin Niessner

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Comments

looper · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-09 15:01:11Z

0

No, there's no possibility to change the default value. If you could change the default-value, it wouldn't be the default anymore ;).

But to set the default-value to null, you could use this:

bool? kajmak;

But that's not what you want...

answered Nov 9, 2012 at 15:01

looper

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Comments

KGVT · Accepted Answer · 2015-10-29 22:21:48Z

0

In the process of trying to do something similar, a colleague enlightened me to the bool? type. It can be true, false, or null, and does not object to being on the left side of such a comparator. This does not answer your question of how to default bool to true, but does solve your conceptual problem of wanting your variables to be definable as true by default.

I only post because this was the top result when I searched, and this information was helpful to me. Hopefully it will be to others who find this page.

answered Oct 29, 2015 at 22:21

KGVT

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Comments

Damian · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-09 15:05:43Z

-2

You may create a class myBool that defaults to false and an implicit conversion from bool to your class.

answered Nov 9, 2012 at 15:05

Damian

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1 Comment

user230910 Over a year ago

Too much overhead, dont do this

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