Use the access modifiers, public, protected, internal, or private to specify one of the following declared accessibilities for members.
Declared accessibility
Meaning
public
Access is not restricted.
protected
Access is limited to the containing class or types derived from the containing class.
internal
Access is limited to the current assembly.
protected internal
Access is limited to the current assembly or types derived from the containing class.
private
Access is limited to the containing type.
Only one access modifier is allowed for a member or type, except when using the protected internal combination.
Access modifiers are not allowed on namespaces. Namespaces have no access restrictions.
Depending on the context in which a member declaration takes place, only certain declared accessibilities are permitted. If no access modifier is specified in a member declaration, a default accessibility is used.
Top-level types, which are not nested into other types, can only have internal or public accessibility. The default accessibility for these types is internal.
Nested types, which are members of other types, can have declared accessibilities as indicated in the following table.
Members of
Default member accessibility
Allowed declared accessibility of the member
enum
public
None
class
private
public
protected
internal
private
protected internal
interface
public
None
struct
private
public
internal
private
The accessibility of a nested type depends on its accessibility domain, which is determined by both the declared accessibility of the member and the accessibility domain of the immediately containing type. However, the accessibility domain of a nested type cannot exceed that of the containing type.
For more information, see the following sections in the C# Language Specification:
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3.5.1 Declared Accessibility
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3.5.3 Protected access for instance members
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3.5.4 Accessibility constraints
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10.2.3 Access Modifiers
-
10.2.6.2 Declared Accessibility
Reference
C# KeywordsAccess Modifiers (C# Reference)
Accessibility Domain (C# Reference)
Restrictions on Using Accessibility Levels (C# Reference)
Access Modifiers (C# Programming Guide)
public (C# Reference)
private (C# Reference)
protected (C# Reference)
internal (C# Reference)
