Actionscript: Accessing private setter in own constructor

Question

I am trying to set a variable whose setter is private in the constructor of the same class, but compiler keeps hitting me on the head with:

1059 Property is readonly
1178: Attempted access of inaccessible property gesamtBetrag through a reference with static type ImmoObject.

package
{
    public class Huhu
    {
        private var _prop1:int;
        public function Huhu()
        {
            prop1 = 24;
        }

        public function get prop1():int
        {
            return _prop1;
        }

        private function set prop1(value:int):void
        {
            _prop1 = value;
        }

    }
}

Am I missing something here?

Answer 1

As stated, you cannot have a private setter and a public getter. The access modifier must be the same for getter and setter.

What you can do is only have a public getter and from within the class constructor or elsewhere you set the private variable directly:

class Foo {
    private var _prop:int;
    public function Foo() {
        _prop = 24;
    }
    public function get prop():int { return _prop; }
}

(Note that in this case you could actually just initialize the private variable with a value, ex private _prop:int = 24.)

You could also expose other means of changing the private variable, such as a function or a setter with a different name:

class Foo {
    private var _prop:int;
    public function get prop():int { return _prop; }
    protected function setProp(prop:int):void {
        _prop = prop;
    }
    protected function set propValue(value:int):int {
        _prop = value;
    }
}

Edit: To be clear, access types must match for getter/setters of properties, but you can mix private/public access of getter/setter methods, in similar style as Java:

private prop:int;
public getProp():int { return prop; }
private setProp(value:int):void {
    prop = value;
}

This is not as common of a style you see in AS3 because we have formal get/set property syntax, but it's still perfectly valid.