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

From:	Tim Düsterhus	Date:	Sun, 09 Nov 2025 19:55:31 +0000
Subject:	Re: RFC: Namespace-Scoped Visibility for Methods and Properties
References:	1 2 3 4 5 6	Groups:	php.internals
Request:	Send a blank email to internals+get-129178@lists.php.net to get a copy of this message

Hi On 11/9/25 20:41, Rob Landers wrote:

class P {
     private(namespace) function x() {}
} class C extends P {
     protected function x() {}
} This behaves the same as overriding a private method with a protected/public one today: the parent’s method is private to its declaring class, so the second example is allowed.

This is unsound. As we have established, neither private(namespace) nor protected is a subset of each other. Specifically allowing this breaks the following (everything is declared in the same namespace):

    class P {
        private(namespace) function x() { }
    }
    class C extends P {
        protected function x() { }
    }

    function f(P $p) {
        $p->x(); // legal, because f is in the same namespace as P.
    }

    f(new C()); // breaks, because C::x() is protected and thus not legal to access from f / the global scope.

Best regards Tim Düsterhus