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POAre there any reasons to use private properties in C#?
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  1. POAre there any reasons to use private properties in C#?
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    copied!<p>I just realized that the C# <strong>property construct</strong> can also be used with a <strong>private</strong> access modifier:</p> <pre><code>private string Password { get; set; } </code></pre> <p>Although this is technically interesting, I can't imagine when I would use it since a <strong>private field</strong> involves even <strong>less ceremony</strong>:</p> <pre><code>private string _password; </code></pre> <p>and I can't imagine when I would ever need to be able to internally <strong><em>get</em> but not <em>set</em></strong> or <strong><em>set</em> but not <em>get</em></strong> a private field:</p> <pre><code>private string Password { get; } </code></pre> <p>or</p> <pre><code>private string Password { set; } </code></pre> <p>but perhaps there is a use case with <strong>nested / inherited classes</strong> or perhaps where a get/set might contain <strong>logic</strong> instead of just giving back the value of the property, although I would tend to keep properties strictly simple and let explicit methods do any logic, e.g. <code>GetEncodedPassword()</code>.</p> <p><strong>Does anyone use private properties in C# for any reason or is it just one of those technically-possible-yet-rarely-used-in-actual-code constructs?</strong></p> <h1>Addendum</h1> <p>Nice answers, reading through them I culled these uses for private properties:</p> <ul> <li>when private fields need to be lazily loaded</li> <li>when private fields need extra logic or are calculated values</li> <li>since private fields can be difficult to debug</li> <li>in order to "present a contract to yourself"</li> <li>to internally convert/simplify an exposed property as part of serialization</li> <li>wrapping global variables to be used inside your class</li> </ul>
 

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