Using properties for lists

Question

I'm trying to use a property to prevent the first value of a list ever being less than zero:

    private List<int> _MyList = new List<int>();
    public List<int> MyList
    {
        get
        {
            return _MyList;
        }
        set
        {
            if (value[0] < 0)
            {
                value[0] = 0;
            }

            _MyList = value;
        }
    }

Add then in my code:

if(ButtonPressed)
{
      MyList[0] -= 1;
}

However I can press the button and decrease the value through zero.

What am I missing?

Answer 1

You never enter that property, it is reserved for setting the value of the actual list rather than the lists elements. Your best bet is to write a method to reduce the items count

void AdjustCount(int value)
{
    if(MyList[0] + value >= 0)
        MyList[0] += value
}


if(ButtonPressed)
{
   AdjustCount(-1);
}