From: Wayne Vucenic <nightphotos@...>
Date: 2006-12-24T09:57:30+09:00
Subject: Re: why private is not private

Hi Li,

To add to what others have replied, "private" in Ruby
means that the method cannot be called with an explicit receiver.
So it can be called from a subclass (which wouldn't work for
private methods in C++/Java), but it can't be called with
an explicit "self." (which would work in C++/Java):

class Object
  private
  def method1(arg1)
    arg1
  end
end

class Test
   def test
      puts "calling method1 within Test..."
      puts method1(1)
   end
end

t = Test.new
t.test

puts "calling self.method1..."
puts self.method1(2)

---

calling method1 within Test...
1
calling self.method1...
F:/Temp/privateTest.rb:21: private method `method1' called for
main:Object (NoMethodError)

C:\>ruby -v
ruby 1.8.2 (2004-12-25) [i386-mswin32]

Hope this helps,

Wayne

---
Wayne Vucenic
No Bugs Software
Ruby, C#, and Erlang Agile Contract Programming in Silicon Valley