Honestly, what's the difference between public variable and public property accessor? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicates:
What is the difference between a field and a property in C#
Should I use public properties and private fields or public fields for data?

What is the difference between:

public string varA;

and

public string varA { get; set; }

Answer 1

The public property accessor gives you more flexibility in the future.

If you want to add validation to setting the value, you simply write a non-default setter. None of your other code would have to be modified.

There could also be reasons you'd want to replace the default getter with code. That can be a real pain with a public variable.

Answer 2

In addition to the other answers, you can also use a property to make the value read-only or even set-only:

public int Item { get; private set; } // read-only outside the class. Can only be set privately.

I have also run into situations where I later decide I want to proxy an object, or add AOP, which basically requires properties.