What is the purpose of set { return; }?

Question

I've seen the following code in various places:

 namespace My.name.space
    {
        class myClass
        {       
            public CustomObject Name
            {
                get { return new CustomObject (this.Dog); }
                set { return; }
            }

        }
    }

What is the purpose of set { return; }?

I don't understand what purpose set return would serve.

I would think you could just remove the set accessor completely.

Answer 1

None. It's somebody who doesn't quite know that a read-only property can be expressed much more simply by not including the set

public Derp MuhDerp { get { return _derp; } }

Interesting point brought up by CSharpie in a comment...

If you have to have a set because it is defined in an interface, you can add the set but omit the return:

public Derp MuhDerp { get { return _derp; } set { } }

Of course, if the interface defines a setter, you should probably make sure it works as expected :)

Answer 2

It is basically to give the illusion that there is a setter, well there is, but does nothing. But it was probably done to keep some interface happy or a parent class:

public CustomObject Name
{
   get { return new CustomObject( this.Dog ); }
   set { return; } // does absolutely nothing
}

Here is a class:

public abstract class A {
   public abstract void DoWork();
   public abstract string SomeProperty { get; set; }
}

Here is giving the illusion that it is implementing the abstract interface, but it really is not implementing everything:

public class B : A {
   public override string SomeProperty
   {
      get
      {
         return "whatever";
      }

      set
      {
         return; // keep interface happy
      }
   }

   public override void DoWork() {
      // I am not doing nothing but compiler is happy
   }
}

That code also breaks Liskov Substitution Principle.