Protected

The protected access modifier can be used in the global scope, but it is generally considered to be a bad practice. IDEs typically hide protected attributes and methods from outside the class, which can hinder autocomplete and code correction.


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class SomeClass():
    first = "Something"
    _attribute = "Protected"
    
    def _method(self):
        print("You should use protected inside the class")

    def info(self):
        print("INFO")
        print("first:", self.first)
        print("_attribute:", self._attribute)
        self._method()


instance = SomeClass()
print("Outside:", instance._attribute)  # BAD PRACTICE
instance.info()  # It's OK

You can use protected attributes and methods inside subclasses.


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class User:
  _entity = "Internet User"
  
class Admin(User):
    def print_entity(self):
        print(self._entity)

admin = Admin()
admin.print_entity()

The protected access modifier allows you to define logic inside a class that can be extended to subclasses but should not be accessed directly from outside the class hierarchy.

Note

Protected attributes/methods in Python work similarly to regular attributes/methods, but by convention among developers, they are used for encapsulating data within a class and its subclasses.

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Section 3. Chapter 3