Function visibility (in PHP5) has some quirks as compared to the normal behavior with "extends". Consider the following:
class base {
public function a() { $this->b(); }
private function b() { echo "This is b()"; }
}
This will work fine:
class inherit extends base {
public function c() { $this->a(); }
}
$x = new inherit;
$x->c();
while this:
class adopt {
public function c() { $this->a(); }
}
runkit_class_adopt('adopt','base');
$x = new adopt;
$x->c();
will generate a fatal "Call to private method base::b() from context 'adopt'" error. Protected members can be called from the inherited methods, but still cannot be called from the original class (i.e. if b() were declared protected, the example would work as written, but adopt::c() still could not call base::b() directly.