Question

What are public methods? What are private methods?

Short answer

In summary, public methods are accessible from anywhere within the program and serve as an interface for interaction with the class, while private methods are only accessible within the class and are used for internal tasks and functions. The key difference between these two types of methods lies in their accessibility.

Step-by-step solution

Public Methods

Public methods are methods in a class that can be accessed from anywhere within the program, whether it's within the same class or an instance of another class. They act as an interface for other classes or code to interact with the class containing the public method. To declare a public method, you need to use the 'public' keyword in the method declaration.

Private Methods

Private methods are methods in a class that can only be accessed from within the same class. These methods are not accessible by instances of other classes or even subclasses. Private methods are meant to be used internally in a class for performing specific functions that should not be exposed to external code. To declare a private method, you need to use the 'private' keyword in the method declaration.

Comparison

The main difference between public and private methods is their accessibility. Public methods can be accessed from anywhere within the program, whereas private methods can only be accessed within the same class. Public methods serve as an interface for external code and objects to interact with the class, while private methods are meant for internal use within the class to perform specific tasks.