Does Python have “private” variables in classes?

Question

I\'m coming from the Java world and reading Bruce Eckels\' Python 3 Patterns, Recipes and Idioms.

While reading about classes, it goes on to say that in Py

Answer 1

As mentioned earlier, you can indicate that a variable or method is private by prefixing it with an underscore. If you don't feel like this is enough, you can always use the property decorator. Here's an example:

class Foo:

    def __init__(self, bar):
        self._bar = bar

    @property
    def bar(self):
        """Getter for '_bar'."""
        return self._bar

This way, someone or something that references bar is actually referencing the return value of the bar function rather than the variable itself, and therefore it can be accessed but not changed. However, if someone really wanted to, they could simply use _bar and assign a new value to it. There is no surefire way to prevent someone from accessing variables and methods that you wish to hide, as has been said repeatedly. However, using property is the clearest message you can send that a variable is not to be edited. property can also be used for more complex getter/setter/deleter access paths, as explained here: https://docs.python.org/3/library/functions.html#property