package Base; # Base class to experiment with private and protected methods use warnings; use strict; use Carp; sub new { my $type = shift; my $class = ref $type || $type; my $self = { TEXT => undef, SECRET => undef, NOTSOSECRET => undef, }; my $closure = sub { my $field = shift; if (@_) { $self->{$field} = shift; } return $self->{$field}; }; bless ($closure,$class); return $closure; } # a public accessor to set TEXT sub text { &{ $_[0] }("TEXT", @_[1 .. $#_]) } # a private accessor to set SECRET sub private { caller(0) eq __PACKAGE__ || confess "private method"; &{ $_[0] }("SECRET", @_[1 .. $#_]); } # a public accessor to set SECRET by means of the private method sub secret { private($_[0],@_[1 .. $#_]); } # a protected accessor to set NOTSOSECRET sub protected { caller(0)->isa(__PACKAGE__) || confess "protected method\n"; &{ $_[0] }("NOTSOSECRET", @_[1 .. $#_]); } 1; #### package Inherit; # Inherit class to experiment with private and protected methods use warnings; use strict; use Base; use vars qw(@ISA); @ISA = qw(Base); sub inheritSecret { $_[0]->private(@_[1 .. $#_]); } sub inheritNotSoSecret { $_[0]->protected(@_[1 .. $#_]); } 1; #### #!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; use strict; use Base; use Inherit; my $base = Base->new(); $base->text("hello"); print $base->text . "\n"; my $inherit = Inherit->new(); $inherit->text("howdy"); print $inherit->text . "\n"; $base->secret("secret"); print $base->secret . "\n"; # this will get us an error saying private method #$inherit->inheritSecret("verySecret"); #print $inherit->inheritSecret . "\n"; # impossible to access protected directly #$inherit->protected("notsosecret"); #print $inherit->protected . "\n"; # access to NOTSOSECRET by means of a protected method $inherit->inheritNotSoSecret("notsosecret"); print $inherit->inheritNotSoSecret . "\n";