No more `private init` in Swift?

Question

I saw a number of references to using private init in Swift to restrict object construction (e.g. this), yet it does not seem to be possible when I try (in Xcode 7.2.1 Playground):

class C {
    private init() {}
}

var c = C() // No errors.

Am I missing something or is this actually a bug?

Answer 1

You're probably expecting private to restrict the use to within the class definition, but that's not what it does.

The definition of private is to "restrict the use of an entity to its own defining source file".

From the Swift book, "Access Control" chapter.

EDIT:

As of Swift 3 fileprivate does what private used to and private is now more restrictive in that it "restricts the use of an entity to the enclosing declaration"