What are the differences between “private”, “public”, and “protected methods”?

Question

I\'m learning Ruby, and have come up to a point where I am confused.

The book I am using is talking about private, public, and protec

Answer 1

I think breaking down an explicit receiver is what is important if your having trouble grasping the concept.

An explicit receiver is an object that is accepting a message.

 person.get_name

person is the receiver and the method "get_name" is giving instructions to the object "person" to perform the method "get_name".

class Person
    attr_accessor :first_name, :last_name 

  def initialize(first_name, last_name)
    @first_name = first_name
    @last_name = last_name
    puts "And #{phone_number}" # Private method called when initialized
  end

  private 
  def phone_number
    return "XXX-XXX-XXXX"
  end
end


p p1 = Person.new("mike", "jones")


p p1.phone_number # Not within the context of the object instance.

When a method is private, it can only be used by other methods inside the object in whose class it is defined.