What are the benefits to using a partial class as opposed to an abstract one?

Question

I have been reading Programming Microsoft® Visual C#® 2008: The Language to get a better understanding of C# and what can be done with it. I came across partial classes whic

Answer 1

Partial class are now used heavily in ASP.Net to allow two source files the mark-up based example.aspx and the code based example.aspx.cs so that methods and variable defined in each are visible to each. in the example.aspx

in the example.aspx.cs

private object GetProperty(){ // called from aspx
    return DateTime.Now;
}

private void DoStuff(){
    ExampleControl c = exampleCntr; //exampleCntr is defined in aspx.
}

The bi-directional nature of this cannot be recreated with abstract classes.