Why have empty get set properties instead of using a public member variable? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
C#: Public Fields versus Automatic Properties

Duplicate? I think not:
This question is not the same as "Why use properties instead of public field". A property with a specified getter and setter is far different than a public field. My question was, is a property WITHOUT a getter and setter, any different.

With the somewhat recent ability to have empty getters and setters, what is the benefit of using them instead of just declaring a public member variable?

Example:

public string MyProperty {     get;     set; } 

versus:

public string MyProperty; 

Answer 1

One word: inheritance.

Properties are inheritable while fields are not. You can use fields in an inherited class, but not alter their behavior by making them virtual.

Like so:

public class Foo {   public virtual int MyField = 1; // Nope, this can't    public virtual int Bar {get; set; } }  public class MyDerive : Foo {   public override MyField; // Nope, this can't    public override int Bar {     get {       //do something;     }     set; } } 

Edit: Besides the fact of inheritance, the points pointed out in the other answers (like visibility) are also a huge benefit of properties over fields.

Answer 2

One thing you can do with properties that you can't do with fields is limit visibility for either setter or getter:

public string MyProperty { get; private set; } 

Something I use quite a lot.

And something (more powerful) you can't do with fields is define them inside an interface. Suppose you want an interface that requires implementing classes to have a certain property:

public interface MyInterface {     string MyProperty { get; } } 

Note that you do not need to have a setter here. It is entirely up to implementing classes to determine how they should set MyProperty.