C# 0 The Complete Reference

PART I

C h a p t e r   8 :  

A   C l o s e r   L o o k   a t   M e t h o d s   a n d   C l a s s e s  

167

PART IPART I

    // Access to alpha and beta is allowed only through methods.

    ob.SetAlpha(-99);

    ob.SetBeta(19);

    Console.WriteLine("ob.alpha is " + ob.GetAlpha());

    Console.WriteLine("ob.beta is " + ob.GetBeta());

    // You cannot access alpha or beta like this:

//  ob.alpha = 10; // Wrong! alpha is private!

//  ob.beta = 9;   // Wrong! beta is private!

    // It is OK to directly access gamma because it is public.

    ob.gamma = 99;

   }

}

As you can see, inside the 

MyClass

 class, 

alpha

is specified as 

private

,

beta

 is private by 

default, and 

gamma

 is specified as 

public

. Because 

alpha

 and 

beta

 are private, they cannot 

be accessed by code outside of their class. Therefore, inside the 

AccessDemo

 class, neither 

can be used directly. Each must be accessed through public methods, such as 

SetAlpha( )

and

GetAlpha( )

. For example, if you were to remove the comment symbol from the 

beginning of the following line

//  ob.alpha = 10; // Wrong! alpha is private!

you would not be able to compile this program because of the access violation. Although 

access to