C# fields and properties

Question

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What is the difference between a field and a property in C#

I don't understand the difference between field and properties in a class.

Answer 1

A field is a storage location for information. For example, if the field is of type int, it stores a 32-bit integer (a number from around minus 4 billion to around plus 4 billion).

A property is almost like a method or a pair of methods. It’s just code. No storage. For example, instead of

public int FortySeven
{
    get
    {
        return 47;
    }
}

you could also write

public int GetFortySeven()
{
    return 47;
}

and it would be more or less the same thing; the only difference is that you write FortySeven (no parentheses) but GetFortySeven() (with parentheses).

Of course, properties can also have a setter, which means that

public int FortySeven
{
    set
    {
        Console.WriteLine(value);
    }
}

is pretty much the same thing as

public void SetFortySeven(int value)
{
    Console.WriteLine(value);
}

and now instead of FortySeven = 47 you write SetFortySeven(47), but otherwise it is functionally the same.

An automatically-implemented property looks like this:

public int MyProperty { get; set; }

This code declares both a field and a property, but the field is invisible and you can only access the property. It uses the invisible field for its storage.