Difference between Public, Private and Protected in PHP

To decide the scope of a variable or a function, in PHP we have mainly three access modifiers in PHP.

Access Modifiers:

Access modifiers are basically PHP Keywords which set the accessibility of the variables and methods. We can also set the accessibility of variables and functions of a class by setting the accessibility of class.

These are used in Inheritance to define the scope of instances of parent and child classes.

1. Public:

This keyword used to make variables and functions accessible to anywhere means we can access either inside a class or anywhere outside the class.

Example:

<?php
class Employees_details {
  public $employee_name;
  public $employee_id;
}
$obj = new Employees_details();  // creating the object of Employees_details class
 $obj->employee_name = 'Ramesh';
 $obj->employee_id = '1221';
echo $obj->employee_name;
echo '<br>'.$obj->employee_id;
?>

Output:

2. Protected:

This keyword used to make variables and functions accessible into that class and its child or derived classes.

Example:

<?php
class Employees_details {
 protected $employee_name;
}
$obj = new Employees_details(); // creating the object of Employees_details class
$obj->employee_name = 'Ramesh'; // it will give fatal error
?>

Output:

We can access protected properties by public functions of that class or by public functions of that child classes.

Example:

<?php
class Employees_details {
  protected $employee_name;
  function get_employee($emp_name){
     $this->employee_name=$emp_name;
     echo $this->employee_name;
  }
}
$obj = new Employees_details();  // creating the object of Employees_details class
$obj->get_employee("Pooja");
?>

Output:

3. Private:

This keyword used to make variables and functions accessible only into that class means we can't access private properties outside the class.

Example:

<?php
class Employees_details {
  private $employee_name;
}
$obj = new Employees_details(); // creating the object of Employees_details class
 $obj->employee_name = 'Ramesh'; // it will give fatal error
?>

Output:

We can access protected properties by public functions of that class.

Example:

<?php
class Employees_details {
  private $employee_name;
}
  function get_employee($emp_name){
	$this->employee_name=$emp_name;
        echo $this->employee_name;
  }
}
$obj = new Employees_details();  //creating the object of Employees_details class
$obj->get_employee("Pooja");
?>

Output: