What are the potential pitfalls of calling private functions in PHP?

Calling private functions in PHP can lead to unexpected behavior and may violate the principles of encapsulation. Private functions are meant to be used only within the class they are defined in, so calling them from outside the class can result in errors or unintended consequences. To avoid this, it is best to refactor the code to use public functions that call the private functions internally. 

class Example {
    private function privateFunction() {
        return "This is a private function";
    }

    public function publicFunction() {
        return $this->privateFunction();
    }
}

$example = new Example();
echo $example->publicFunction(); // This will correctly call the private function

Keywords

private functions PHP visibility access control OOP

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