The purpose of { get; set}

Question

I'm learning c#. I was wondering, why is

public class Example {

public int X { get; set}

}

used, when you could just use

public class Example {

public int X;

}

Both do the same thing (in my understanding). Both allow you to change the value of the variable. Why use get/set over just declaring the variable public?

Answer 1

The purpose of getters and setters is to do some calculation, processing or update when changing or accessing a property.

Declaring getters and settters as empty is the same as declaring a public field.

class Property { 

    private bool enabled = false;
    private int numberOfEnabledReadings = 0;
    public bool Enabled {
        get
        {
            //Do some processing (in this case counting the number of accecess)
            numberOfEnabledReadings++;
            return enabled;
        }
        set
        {
            enabled = value;
            //Update GUI
        }
    }

}

edit:

As I said before: "Declaring getters and settters as empty is the same as declaring a public field.".

Well, this is true in terms of functionality.

In fact they are not the same, as mentioned before DataBinding is implemented uppon Properties.

And, properties take a little overhead, try this:

class PropertyTest
{
    public int field = 0;
    public int Property { get; set; }
}
    private void PropertyChangeTime()
    {
        int counter = 0;
        var instance = new PropertyTest();
        var watch = System.Diagnostics.Stopwatch.StartNew();
        for (int i = 0; i < 100000000; i++)
        {
            instance.field = counter++;
        }
        watch.Stop();
        var elapsedMsField = watch.ElapsedMilliseconds;
        counter = 0;
        watch.Reset();
        watch.Start();
        for (int i = 0; i < 100000000; i++)
        {
            instance.Property = counter++;
        }
        watch.Stop();
        var elapsedMsProperty = watch.ElapsedMilliseconds;
        Console.WriteLine($"field: {elapsedMsField}\nproperty: {elapsedMsProperty}");
    }

In my machine:

field: 55
property: 68