PHP classes why use public keyword?

Question

Why should I declare class properties (variables) or methods (functions) using the keyword public, if they're public by default? Or, are they?

To phrase my question differently, is public redundant? I understand private and protected, but why declare public if class members are public anyway?

Answer 1

Yes, public is the default (see visibility docs).

People add it, so it is consistent with all the other methods / properties.

Furthermore, if you want to declare a property public and don't want to use public you will need to use var, which is not recommended and will likely be deprecated at some point.

Answer 2

As of php 5.3 (I think, its been a while), using the var keyword raises E_STRICT errors, so public has to be used to declare object vaiables. As for functions, I believe it is more of a consistency thing.