The declared accessibility of a member can be one of the following:
- Public, which is selected by including a
public modifier in the member declaration. The intuitive meaning of public is "access not limited". - Protected, which is selected by including a
protected modifier in the member declaration. The intuitive meaning of protected is "access limited to the containing class or types derived from the containing class". - Internal, which is selected by including an
internal modifier in the member declaration. The intuitive meaning of internal is "access limited to this program". - Protected internal (meaning protected or internal), which is selected by including both a
protected and an internal modifier in the member declaration. The intuitive meaning of protected internal is "access limited to this program or types derived from the containing class". - Private, which is selected by including a
private modifier in the member declaration. The intuitive meaning of private is "access limited to the containing type".
Depending on the context in which a member declaration takes place, only certain types of declared accessibility are permitted. Furthermore, when a member declaration does not include any access modifiers, the context in which the declaration takes place determines the default declared accessibility.
- Namespaces implicitly have
public declared accessibility. No access modifiers are allowed on namespace declarations. - Types declared in compilation units or namespaces can have
public or internal declared accessibility and default to internal declared accessibility. - Class members can have any of the five kinds of declared accessibility and default to
private declared accessibility. (Note that a type declared as a member of a class can have any of the five kinds of declared accessibility, whereas a type declared as a member of a namespace can have only public or internal declared accessibility.) - Struct members can have
public, internal, or private declared accessibility and default to private declared accessibility because structs are implicitly sealed. Struct members introduced in a struct (that is, not inherited by that struct) cannot have protected or protected internal declared accessibility. (Note that a type declared as a member of a struct can have public, internal, or private declared accessibility, whereas a type declared as a member of a namespace can have only public or internal declared accessibility.) - Interface members implicitly have
public declared accessibility. No access modifiers are allowed on interface member declarations. - Enumeration members implicitly have
public declared accessibility. No access modifiers are allowed on enumeration member declarations.