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[Skill++ ]Private functions/methods inside a Class

GiuseppeGreco

Hello,

I tried to figure out how to create a private method/function for a class.

I wrote this code:

defclass( A
()
((slot @initform 1 @initarg a)
)
procedure(print_priv()
print("Hello!")
)
)

myA = makeInstance('A)

The questions are:

1) Is there a way to retrieve print_priv() function from the class instance myA?

2) If this piece of code does not make sense, is there a way to define a private methods inside a class definition so to have them full packaged?

Thank you

Giuseppe

  • Andrew Beckett

    Hi Giuseppe,

    Functions are not (and cannot) be defined within the defclass definition. Currently everything beyond the slot definition (the third argument to defclass) is ignored - it's there to support potential future options which might get added . You certainly cannot put any function definitions there - they will simply be ignored.

    This doesn't make any sense within the object model - functions (methods) are not defined as part of the class in the language. They are defined outside of classes.

    It is not currently possible to lexically define methods such that they are only visible within a lexical scope and hence are private. There's one existing enhancement request, CCR 1434162, filed by one of my team which is asking for this, but nothing has been implemented yet. You can define normal functions lexically so they are hidden, but not defmethod.

    So private methods are only really possible with the object system by naming convention - maybe prefixing with underscore is a good cue that they should not be used outside the code? That convention is used elsewhere for private/public functions.

    Andrew.

  • GiuseppeGreco
    in reply to Andrew Beckett

    Thank you Andrew for the clarification,

    Best regards,

    Giuseppe

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