using get vs property vs method [duplicate]

Question

if i have a private property in a class, i'm wondering what technically the difference is between the following three scenarios (memory usage, usability, best practice, etc):

class testClass
{
     private string myString1 = "hello";

     private string myString2 { get { return "hello"; } }

     private string myString3() { return "hello"; }
}

apart from obviously being able to set the value in myString1 and not in myString2 or myString3, i'm wondering more about how these differ in terms of efficiency?

Answer 1

I try to follow these rules where possible:

• Fields should be kept private
• Properties should be used to expose data
• Methods should be used to perform an action

There are obviously going to be some situations where every last drop of performance is important, but in general I would attempt to follow best-practice until profiling tells you that optimisation is needed.

There's a good article here: Why Properties Matter

Answer 2

I personally prefer properties for things without side effects and explicit getter if something is calculate on the fly. Eg:

class User {
    private string username;

    public string Username {
        get { return username; }
        set { username = value; }
    }

    public Post GetLatestPost() {
        // query the database or whatever you do here.
    }
}

And a lot of the APIs I've seen seem to do it similar. Hope that helps.