Access Control

Ruby has three levels of access for methods:

• Public Methods can be called by anyone. Methods are public by default, except for initialize, which is always private.

• Protected Methods can only be invoked by members of the defining class and its subclasses

• Private Methods can only be called by the defining class and direct descendents within the same object.

     Class MyClass

         def meth1  # public by default
            ...
         end

       protected

         def meth2  # protected
            ...
         end

       private

         def meth3  # private
            ...
         end

       public

         def meth4  # explicitly public
            ...
         end