PHP OOP - Access Modifiers

In PHP Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), access modifiers are keywords that control the visibility of class members (properties and methods).
There are three main access modifiers in PHP:

public
protected
and private

Public: When a property or method is declared as public, it means it can be accessed from outside the class, as well as from within the class and its subclasses.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>

class MyClass {
    public $publicProperty;
    
    public function publicMethod() {
        echo "This is a public method.";
    }
}

$obj = new MyClass();
echo $obj->publicProperty; // Accessing public property
$obj->publicMethod(); // Accessing public method

You can click on above box to edit the code and run again.

Output

Protected: When a property or method is declared as protected, it means it can only be accessed from within the class and its subclasses, but not from outside the class.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
class MyClass {
    protected $protectedProperty;
    
    protected function protectedMethod() {
        echo "This is a protected method.";
    }
}

$obj = new MyClass();
//echo $obj->protectedProperty; // Cannot access protected property from outside
//$obj->protectedMethod(); // Cannot access protected method from outside

You can click on above box to edit the code and run again.

Output

Private: When a property or method is declared as private, it means it can only be accessed from within the class itself, but not from its subclasses or outside the class.

Example

<!DOCTYPE html>
class MyClass {
    private $privateProperty;
    
    private function privateMethod() {
        echo "This is a private method.";
    }
}

$obj = new MyClass();
//echo $obj->privateProperty; // Cannot access private property from outside
//$obj->privateMethod(); // Cannot access private method from outside

You can click on above box to edit the code and run again.

Output

public: Accessible from anywhere.

protected: Accessible from the class itself and its subclasses.

private: Accessible only from the class itself.