Thread: Guidance Needed in VB: When NOT to use public functions

Public functions/subroutines can be called from the Call statement, whereas private ones can't.....i think :P

You can change private functions and subs to public and then call them if you want. I do this for my frontend app to manipulate play control from the Nav screen. Instead of re-writing the play/pause/next/prev/stop code i just call the sub for my command buttons on whatever module is playing (call frmMP3.cmdMain_Click()) and send the index of the button so it knows which one i'm wanting it to "press" so to speak.

Your question applies to all languages that use private/public. Basically you can create an entire application using public functions if you want to. But they can be called and modified from any instance of the class.

This can be good for intances such as the above. But this can be bad for security reasons.

Suppose some bank program has an option to delete an account. Now you don't want this to be available for everyone to use. So you make that private deep within some class A. Then you have a public function that does some sort of authorization in class A as well. Then from some class B where it takes all the user input it calls an instance of A and then the public authorization function. The delete function is impossible to access directly because it is private. If the authorization succeeds, then the public function calls the private function.

Just safer code. Obviously that is a really simple example, but it has good uses some times.

It really isn't about security so much as 'self documentation' about what code is supposed to call this function. This is called 'encapsulation' and is a means to help prevent errors and make the code more maintainable.

When YOU write something, you would want to make it private if you need to guarantee a certain state for a function to be called.

Say you have 2 functions:
LoadSong
PlaySong

now suppose that play song require that the setup that loadsong does before it can be called safely. One solution to this would be to make them both private, then make a third public function call LoadAndPlaySong which called the two in order. Of course you could always make them both public and require the person using them (even if it is only you) to remember to always do the right thing, but encapsulation in this manner makes it a little bit more clear, and also makes it harder to do the wrong thing.

Public = function can be called outside the module (or form) it resides in.
Private = can only be used within the same module/form.

If you can, keep the functions/subs private. It's not only good for security, but also keeps things clean and keeps the bugs down.

Access modifiers are not about security. It is certiainly aobut keeping things clean and helping to avoid bugs, but it is not security in any way, shape or form.

Originally Posted by zPilott

Access modifiers are not about security. It is certiainly aobut keeping things clean and helping to avoid bugs, but it is not security in any way, shape or form.

It is "security" in the form of protecting certain aspects of your class from being directly accessed. On a group coding project where you write a class or two and so do like 50 other people, it is very useful.

Maybe some function needs certain variables to be set or currently active before it is called. Now to make sure you cannot call that function at all externally, make it private. Now you make a public function that sets what is needed and then calls the private function.

It is security in the program, but not security for the end-user.

When in doubt, make it private.

Keep this in mind: It's very easy to break code by making something go from public to private. You will NEVER (though, I'm sure there's some insanely ridic instance when this is false) break code by making something private public.

Originally Posted by BrownieMan

You will NEVER (though, I'm sure there's some insanely ridic instance when this is false) break code by making something private public.

Or the not-so-insane instance that there are two forms with a Button1 on them and the event Button1Click is public somewhere...
Or that Button1Click calls Play() on the video page which actually calls the public function on the music page instead...

Just quick examples I could see off the bat. For the record, I use all public functions and name them accordingly. IE: musicPlay, videoPlay, albumPlay, etc... Mostly because each one has different parameters but... you get the idea.

I never use private/protected functions either but that is also because I am a 1 man team and dont need to protect my little part of code from playing nice with others' code in a giant project where people can name things the same and not know.