Order of items in classes: Fields, Properties, Con

Question

Is there an official C# guideline for the order of items in terms of class structure?

Does it go:

• Public Fields
• Private Fields
• Properties
• Constructors
• Methods
  ?

I'm curious if there is a hard and fast rule about the order of items? I'm kind of all over the place. I want to stick with a particular standard so I can do it everywhere.

The real problem is my more complex properties end up looking a lot like methods and they feel out of place at the top before the constructor.

Any tips/suggestions?

Answer 1

Usually I try to follow the next pattern:

• static members (have usually an other context, must be thread-safe, etc.)
• instance members

Each part (static and instance) consists of the following member types:

• operators (are always static)
• fields (initialized before constructors)
• constructors
• destructor (is a tradition to follow the constructors)
• properties
• methods
• events

Then the members are sorted by visibility (from less to more visible):

• private
• internal
• internal protected
• protected
• public

The order is not a dogma: simple classes are easier to read, however, more complex classes need context-specific grouping.

Answer 2

According to the StyleCop Rules Documentation the ordering is as follows.

Within a class, struct or interface: (SA1201 and SA1203)

• Constant Fields
• Fields
• Constructors
• Finalizers (Destructors)
• Delegates
• Events
• Enums
• Interfaces (interface implementations)
• Properties
• Indexers
• Methods
• Structs
• Classes

Within each of these groups order by access: (SA1202)

• public
• internal
• protected internal
• protected
• private

Within each of the access groups, order by static, then non-static: (SA1204)

• static
• non-static

Within each of the static/non-static groups of fields, order by readonly, then non-readonly : (SA1214 and SA1215)

• readonly
• non-readonly

An unrolled list is 130 lines long, so I won't unroll it here. The methods part unrolled is:

• public static methods
• public methods
• internal static methods
• internal methods
• protected internal static methods
• protected internal methods
• protected static methods
• protected methods
• private static methods
• private methods

The documentation notes that if the prescribed order isn't suitable - say, multiple interfaces are being implemented, and the interface methods and properties should be grouped together - then use a partial class to group the related methods and properties together.

Answer 3

The closest you're likely to find is "Design Guidelines, Managed code and the .NET Framework" (http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/articles/361363.aspx) by Brad Abrams

Many standards are outlined here. The relevant section is 2.8 I think.