Received: by 10.181.12.101 with SMTP id ep5mr3126223wid.1.1350352624451; Mon, 15 Oct 2012 18:57:04 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Path: q10ni65138190wif.0!nntp.google.com!feeder1.cambriumusenet.nl!feeder2.cambriumusenet.nl!feed.tweaknews.nl!193.141.40.65.MISMATCH!npeer.de.kpn-eurorings.net!npeer-ng0.de.kpn-eurorings.net!border2.nntp.ams2.giganews.com!border1.nntp.ams2.giganews.com!border3.nntp.ams.giganews.com!border1.nntp.ams.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!news.panservice.it!feeder.erje.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: real-not-anti-spam-addr...@apple-juice.co.uk (D.M. Procida) Newsgroups: comp.lang.python Subject: Re: Private methods Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2012 14:59:27 +0100 Organization: Apple Juice, Cardiff Lines: 28 Message-ID: <1krpdak.u0qy9e1a4knspN%real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk> References: <1krpbz9.1wge3j11123k2vN%real-not-anti-spam-address@apple-juice.co.uk> X-Trace: individual.net U//lgioSNi8PcmcDpCxppgknzDMF70KC7XNEcAeB9kAGAPYiVN X-Orig-Path: real-not-anti-spam-address Cancel-Lock: sha1:t3KX9bmFJ4rnKmT4/3SWHLzH6es= User-Agent: MacSOUP/2.8.2 (Mac OS X version 10.8.2 (x86)) Bytes: 1760 Mark Lawrence wrote: > On 09/10/2012 14:24, D.M. Procida wrote: > > What exactly is the point of a private method? Why or when would I want > > to use one? > > > > Daniele > > > > Hardly a Python question but using a search engine could have got you > here, and rather faster :) > http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2620699/why-private-methods-in-the-ob ject-oriented Thanks. Sometimes I prefer to talk to real people on Usenet than do web searches. Just my preference. Anyway, one of the answers on that page explains that public methods are interfaces to a class, that other things might rely on, and private ones are for its own internal logic, that other things don't need to care about. In Python, using an underscore is simply a convention to note that a method is private - it doesn't actually hide it from other things - correct? Daniele