note 70361 added to language.oop5.visibility

It is said that the constructor must be declared public. for whatever reason, it can be declared protected or private! However, only child classes can make a call to the protected or private parent constructor. Instantiating the parent class will produce an error. In the same manner, a protected __destruct in the parent class is possible, but *must not* be private. Here's the snippet: class Visibility { public function pubFunc() { echo 'pubFunc called'; } protected function protFunc() { echo 'protFunc called '; } private function privFunc() { echo 'privFunc called'; } function privAccessor() { privFunc(); } /*alternate these next two lines */ //private function __construct() { protected function __construct() { echo 'Visibility constructor called'; } // private function __destruct() //fails! protected function __destruct() { //ok! echo 'Visibility destructor called'; } } class ChildVisibility extends Visibility { public function callProtFunc() { parent::protFunc(); } public function __construct() { parent::__construct(); echo 'ChildVisibility constructor called'; } public function __destruct() { echo 'ChildVisibility destructor called'; parent::__destruct(); } } $oCV = new ChildVisibility(); $oCV->callProtFunc(); Here's what i got: Visibility constructor called ChildVisibility constructor called protFunc called ChildVisibility destructor called Visibility destructor called ---- Server IP: 66.163.161.117 Probable Submitter: 218.219.13.70 (proxied: unknown) ---- Manual Page -- http://www.php.net/manual/en/language.oop5.visibility.php Edit -- https://master.php.net/note/edit/70361 Del: integrated -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/70361/integrated Del: useless -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/70361/useless Del: bad code -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/70361/bad+code Del: spam -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/70361/spam Del: non-english -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/70361/non-english Del: in docs -- https://master.php.net/note/delete/70361/in+docs Del: other reasons-- https://master.php.net/note/delete/70361 Reject -- https://master.php.net/note/reject/70361 Search -- https://master.php.net/manage/user-notes.php