add a protected method to a class in swift

In Swift, there is no keyword for protected access control like in other programming languages. However, you can achieve similar behavior by using access control modifiers and the fileprivate keyword.

To add a protected method to a class in Swift, you can mark the method as fileprivate, which restricts access to the method to only the current file and any extensions of the class in the same file. This effectively makes the method protected to the class and its subclasses.

Here is an example of adding a fileprivate method to a class in Swift:

main.swift
class MyClass {
    fileprivate func myProtectedMethod() {
        // Implementation here
    }
}
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In this example, the myProtectedMethod() method is marked as fileprivate, which makes it only accessible within the same file. This means that any subclass of MyClass can access this method, but any code outside of the file cannot.

Note that while fileprivate can provide similar behavior to protected access in some cases, it is not a perfect replacement. It is important to use access control modifiers carefully to maintain good encapsulation and avoid potential security vulnerabilities.