Fields vs Properties for private class variables [duplicate]

Answer 1

The point of automatic properties is they are very quick at creating a public access to some field in your class. Now, they offer no benefit over exposing straight up fields to the outside world, other than one big one.

Your class' interface is how it communicates with the outside world. Using automatic properties over fields allows you to change the internals of your class down the road in case you need to make setting the value of that property do something or check authorization rules or something similar on the read.

The fact that you already have a property means you can change your implementation without breaking your public interface.

Therefore, if this is just a private field, an automatic property isn't really that useful, not only that, but you can't initialize public properties at declaration like you can with fields.

Answer 2

Granted, since it's a private API, its an implementation detail - you can do whatever you want here. However, there is very little reason to not use a property, even for private classes. The properties get inlined away by the JIT, unless there is extra code in place, so there isn't really a performance impact.

The biggest reasons to prefer properties, IMO, are:

1. Consistency in your API - You'll want properties in publicly exposed APIs, so making them in the private API will make your programming exprience more consistent, which leads to less bugs due to better maintainability
2. Easier to convert private class to public

Answer 3

From my perspective, using properties in lieu of variables boils down to:

Pros

• Can set a break point for debugging, as Jared mentioned,
• Can cause side-effects, like Rex's EnsureValue(),
• The get and set can have different access restrictions (public get, protected set),
• Can be utilized in Property Editors,

Cons

• Slower access, uses method calls.
• Code bulk, harder to read (IMO).
• More difficult to initialize, like requiring EnsureValue();

Not all of these apply to int Limit {get; set;} style properties.

Answer 4

Properties are just syntactic sugar, C# will compile them into get_PropertyName and set_PropertyName, so performance differences are not a consideration.

Answer 5

Properties provide some very good automatic features (like Json and Xml Serialization)

Fields do not.

Properties can also be a part of an Interface. If you decide to refactor later on... this might be something to consider too.