Question

If I have a class that contains properties with private set and protected set accessibility levels set, will I be able to change those properties on another instance of the same class?

Note: I’m not on a machine which I can test this on right now, otherwise I’d just run the code below.

For instance:

public class Foo
{
    public string A {get; private set;}
    public string B {get; protected set;}

    public void Bar() 
    {
        var someOtherFoo = new Foo();

        // Does this change someOtherFoo's A?
        someOtherFoo.A = "A";

        // Does this change someOtherFoo's B?
        someOtherFoo.B = "B";
    }
}

Answer 1

Yes. The access is to the type, not the instance. This is especially useful for things like implementing equality, as you can test this.x == other.x && this.y == other.y;. Access is also available to nested types.