Re: RFC: Namespace-Scoped Visibility for Methods and Properties

Hi Rob On Sat, Nov 8, 2025, 14:46 Rob Landers <rob@bottled.codes> wrote: > Hello Internals, > > I’d like to introduce an RFC for discussion: > https://wiki.php.net/rfc/namespace_visibility which proposes a > new > visibility modifier: private(namespace). > > This idea has appeared several times in previous threads but never > progressed to a formal proposal (from what I could find). My hope is that > with defined semantics, examples, and implementation details, we can > evaluate it properly and see whether there’s support for moving forward. > Feedback is very welcome. > > Nice work on this. I have one issue: > *Visibility hierarchy: *public < protected < private(namespace) < private I think is not a correct view of the real problem space, as the protected and private namespace scopes are separate sets that might have things in common but can also be distinct. I think the correct way to model it, is to have two hierarchies: public < protected < private public < private(namespace) < private Otherwise you can have things like protected private(namespace)(set) that is unclear how it should be handled. Can you clarify what is the right-now expected get and set allowance for these cases: - child classes in the same namespace - child classes in another namespace - non-child classes in the same namespace My suggestion is to not allow mixing protected and private namespace for aviz. -- Alex