More About Classes - Illustrated C# 2005 - page 131

The get Accessor
When the indexer is used to retrieve a value, the get accessor is called with one or more index
parameters. The index parameters represent which value to retrieve.

string s = emp[0];
↑
Index parameter

Your code in the get accessor body must examine the index parameters, determine which
field they represent, and return the value of that field.
The syntax and meaning of the get accessor are shown in Figure 6-18. The left side of the
figure shows the actual syntax of the accessor declaration. The right side shows the semantics
of the accessor if it were written using the syntax of a normal method. The semantics of the get
accessor are as follows:

￿ It has the same parameter list as in the indexer declaration.

￿ It returns a value of the same type as the indexer.

Figure 6-18. The syntax and meaning of the get accessor declaration

More About Indexers
As with properties, the get and set accessors cannot be called explicitly. Instead, the get acces-
sor is called automatically when the indexer is used in an expression for a value. The set
accessor is called automatically when the indexer is assigned a value with the assignment
statement.
When an indexer is “called,” the parameters are supplied between the square brackets.

Index Value
↓ ↓
emp1[0] = "Doe"; // Calls set accessor
string NewName = emp[0]; // Calls get accessor
↑
Index