Squeak already has private method support (was Re: FW: Pressures for Substantially New Squeaks)

Mark A. Schwenk mas at wellthot.com
Thu Feb 18 16:28:11 UTC 1999


"Mark A. Schwenk" wrote:

> It appears that Squeak already has private method support.
> Just begin your private method names with 'pvt'.
> You can only send pvt* messages to self (note that this also means an instance
> creation class method cannot directly send a pvt* message).
> 
> I'm not sure who implemented this. Perhaps Andreas Raab? Maybe the proud papa
> of this code can step forward and add any more insights here.
> 
> Execute the following expression to see some of the relevant implementation:
> 
>         Smalltalk browseMethodsWhoseNamesContain: 'pvt'.
> 
> -Mark Schwenk

Note that the current checking for private messages is done at compile time, not
run time.
If another object such as an object's class wants to send a private message to
an object,
it can still still use an expression of the form "object perform: pvtMessage" to
circumvent
the compile-time privacy protection.





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