Access control lets you restrict which code can use properties and methods. This is important because you might want to stop people reading a property directly, for example.
We could create a Person
struct that has an id
property to store their social security number:
struct Person {
var id: String
init(id: String) {
self.id = id
}
}
let ed = Person(id: "12345")
Once that person has been created, we can make their id
be private so you can’t read it from outside the struct – trying to write ed.id
simply won’t work.
Just use the private
keyword, like this:
struct Person {
private var id: String
init(id: String) {
self.id = id
}
}
Now only methods inside Person
can read the id
property. For example:
struct Person {
private var id: String
init(id: String) {
self.id = id
}
func identify() -> String {
return "My social security number is \(id)"
}
}
Another common option is public
, which lets all other code use the property or method.
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