PHP 4.0 Bug #5142: Allow properties and methods of a class to be declared as public or private

From: juhl@eisenstein.dk Operating system: Linux PHP version: 4.0.0 Release PHP Bug Type: Feature/Change Request Bug description: Allow properties and methods of a class to be declared as public or private This is just a simple feature request. I would like to be able to define methods and properties of a class as either public or private (public could be the default if not specified, to maintain backwards compatibility with the current syntax). Being able to declare methods/properties as private to a class makes a lot of sense if many people are sharing the same codebase and use classes they have not written themselves. If all properties and/or methods of a class are public, then people could possibly set a property or call a method that would cause the class to misbehave. I know this can be guarded against by programming the class "defensively", and also that people could just read the class definition to learn its proper use, but being able to just declare some parts of the class as private solves the above problems nicely and easily. A syntax such as the following would make sense to me: class myClass { public { var $myPublicProperty; function myPublicMethod() { } } private { var $myPrivateProperty; function myPrivateMethod() { } } } Please consider this :-) Best regards Jesper Juhl juhl@eisenstein.dk