From: Ben Bleything <ben@...>
Date: 2011-02-16T03:29:53+09:00
Subject: Re: Explain private methods?

On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Gaba Luschi
<friedoysterlover@gmail.com> wrote:
> When you use the word "private" to clear private methods - what does it
> mean that only code within the object's methods can access those private
> methods?  Can someone give me a simple example of this?

That's basically correct, yes. Technically it means that the method
cannot be called with an explicit receiver:

class Foo
  def pub
    return "public method"
  end

  def call_priv
    priv
  end

  def call_priv_explicitly
    self.priv
  end

  private
  def priv
    return "private method"
  end
end

f = Foo.new
f.pub
# => "public method"

f.priv
# => private method `priv' called for #<Foo:0x10016a1b0> (NoMethodError)

f.call_priv
# => "private method"

f.call_priv_explicitly
# => private method `priv' called for #<Foo:0x100169b98> (NoMethodError)