Method Calling Public/Private Members or Methods Best Practice - C#.NET

Question

What is the best practice for calling members/fields from a private method and public method? Should the private method always call private fields or should they call the public members?

private string _name;
public string Name
{ 
   get {return _name; }
   set { _name = value; }
}

public void DoSomething()
{
   _doSomething();
}


private void _doSomething()
{
   _name.ToLower();
}

Answer 1

I prefer to have all code go through the public interface, simply to reduce the number of places in the code that accesses the actual backing field. Two reasons are

• Simplifies debugging; if you have an issue where a value is changed, or returns an unexpected value, you can set a breakpoint inside the property getter or setter and easily trap any access to the value.
• Reduces impact of changes, you can make changes to the field and it will affect very few places in the code directly.

Or, to put it in a single word: encapsulation.