• Ald (2/2) Jul 04 2007 I was writing a module with several classes, and found out that classes ...
• Kirk McDonald (14/17) Jul 04 2007 Yes: Everything in the same module has an implicit "friend"
• Regan Heath (3/17) Jul 05 2007 To be utterly pedantic; it's only relevant for subclasses in another mo...

Ald <aldarri_s yahoo.com> writes:

I was writing a module with several classes, and found out that classes in the
same module can access each other's private methods and even members.

Is this by design?  If so, then what is protected modifier for?  I have read
the manual, but didn't understand the difference.

Kirk McDonald <kirklin.mcdonald gmail.com> writes:

Ald wrote:
 I was writing a module with several classes, and found out that classes in the
same module can access each other's private methods and even members.
 
 Is this by design?  If so, then what is protected modifier for?  I have read
the manual, but didn't understand the difference.

Yes: Everything in the same module has an implicit "friend" 
relationship, and they can access each other's private stuff. This is 
entirely by design, and replaces C++'s explicit "friend" stuff.

Otherwise, protected means what it does in many other languages. If 
something is private, then nothing outside the class (except for things 
in the same module) can access it, not even subclasses of the class. 
Protected, on the other hand, is just like private, except it grants 
access to subclasses.

-- 
Kirk McDonald
http://kirkmcdonald.blogspot.com
Pyd: Connecting D and Python
http://pyd.dsource.org

Regan Heath <regan netmail.co.nz> writes:

Kirk McDonald Wrote:
 Ald wrote:
 I was writing a module with several classes, and found out that classes in the
same module can access each other's private methods and even members.
 
 Is this by design?  If so, then what is protected modifier for?  I have read
the manual, but didn't understand the difference.

 
 Yes: Everything in the same module has an implicit "friend" 
 relationship, and they can access each other's private stuff. This is 
 entirely by design, and replaces C++'s explicit "friend" stuff.
 
 Otherwise, protected means what it does in many other languages. If 
 something is private, then nothing outside the class (except for things 
 in the same module) can access it, not even subclasses of the class. 
 Protected, on the other hand, is just like private, except it grants 
 access to subclasses.

To be utterly pedantic;  it's only relevant for subclasses in another module,
because the ones in the same module have 'friend' access.

Regan