PHP Class Constants - Public, Private or Protected?

Question

Am I correct in assuming that const properties are automatically public? Is there a way to make them private or protected?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Historically, class constants were always publicly accessible as long as the class was loaded and there was no way to change this.

As of PHP 7.1, they remain public by default but access modifiers may now be applied. Here's the example from the release notes: