Are private fields really private?
As the saying goes, private fields and properties of a class are not available outside the class. But are they really private? Well, they are not; once they are in memory, anyone can tap in to them.
Let’s write some code in c#:
void Main()
{
//create an instance and dump
var demo = new PrivateDemo().Dump();
FieldInfo[] privateFieldInfos = typeof(PrivateDemo)
.GetFields(BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.Instance);
//set new value and dump
foreach (var fieldInfo in privateFieldInfos)
{
fieldInfo.SetValue(demo, "I am no longer private...");
fieldInfo.GetValue(demo).Dump(fieldInfo.Name);
}
}
public class PrivateDemo
{
public string PublicProperty { get; set; }
private string PrivateProperty { get; set; }
private string privateField;
public PrivateDemo()
{
PublicProperty = "I am public...";
PrivateProperty = "I am private...";
privateField = "I am also Private...";
}
}And output from LinQPad:
