What is the meaning of public in C computer programming language?

Answer 1

"public" means that objects can access this member/method from outside of the class that it was declared in. This is the opposite of "private", which means that only methods in the declaring class can access this object, and "protected" which means that this member/method is private except for subclasses, which see it as public.

For example:

class Shape{

private area; // Only methods in the "Shape" class can access this variable

public getArea{return area}; // This is legal because it is in the Shape class

protected setArea(int x){area = x};

};

class Circle : Shape{ // Circle is a subclass of Shape and inherits its members & methods

public randomFunction{area = 7;} // ILLEGAL, area (which belongs to "Shape" is private

public randomFunction2{return getArea()}; // LEGAL, getArea is public

public randomFunction3{setArea(7)}; // LEGAL, because we inherit from Shape

};

See also: encapsulation