private

[Bjorn Pettersen]

> From: - c o v e n t r y - 
> 
> >>Kind of off-topic, but this got me curious. The only way I
> >>could think of is to assume (which I think is always true) 
> >>that the private data members are in order from the starting 
> >>address so based on the offset from the address of the object 
> >>you could access each one.
> >>
> > 
> > .. and of course #define private public, or just go in and 
> edit the .h 
> > file...
> 
> True, but you could edit gcc to allow access to private 
> members of a C++ 
> class, could you not?  Hrm, this issue probably isn't whether it is 
> possible to hack around an implementation of 'private', but 
> more about having a real 'private' type/functionality.  Right 
> now, we hack to put simulate private - why not make other 
> hack to work around it?

The OP asked about private vars/methods like C++. Above are three ways
to get around private in C++ without recompiling the (possibly third
party) C++ library you're #including. As you see, the private
declaration in C++ is mostly informational. In Python we use _ or __
prepended to var/method names to achieve the same effect. Python does
have true private vars/methods through the Bastion module, but most
Pythonistas don't see the purpose. After all, if you can't trust your
developers you have bigger problems.

-- bjorn