What is the difference between public, private, and protected?

Question

When and why should I use public, private, and protected functions and variables inside a class? What is the difference between them?

Answer 1

• Public scope to make that property/method available from anywhere, other classes and instances of the object.
• Private scope when you want your property/method to be visible in its own class only.
• Protected scope when you want to make your property/method visible in all classes that extend current class including the parent class.