.net - "new" keyword in property declaration in c#

Question

I've been given a .NET project to maintain. I was just browsing through the code and I noticed this on a property declaration:

public new string navUrl
{
  get 
  {
    return ...;
  }
  set
  {
    ...
  }
}

I was wondering what does the new modifier do to the property?

Answer 1

It hides the navUrl property of the base class. See new Modifier. As mentioned in that MSDN entry, you can access the "hidden" property with fully qualified names: BaseClass.navUrl. Abuse of either can result in massive confusion and possible insanity (i.e. broken code).