What is the purpose of ‘protected’ in C#?

In C#, ‘protected’ is an access modifier used to specify that members (fields, methods, and properties) can only be accessed by the class where they are defined or its derived classes. Protected members are not accessible from outside the class, but they are visible and accessible to inheriting classes. This allows for encapsulation of class members while still allowing subclasses to inherit and access them.

Using ‘protected’ allows for a tighter encapsulation and inheritance relationship, protecting the internal implementation details of a class while still allowing subclasses to extend and reuse these implementations. Therefore, the purpose of ‘protected’ is to provide access control to class members in an inheritance hierarchy, allowing subclasses to access and reuse the implementations of their parent class.