# Receivers and private methods

**URL:** <https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/t/receivers-and-private-methods/7991>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [June 2, 2018, 11:50am UTC](https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/t/receivers-and-private-methods/7991 "2018-06-02T11:50:19Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![coder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/discuss.kotlinlang.org/coder/32/4885_2.png) [@coder](https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/u/coder)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2018, 11:50am UTC](https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/t/receivers-and-private-methods/7991/1 "2018-06-02T11:50:19Z")

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how do I make a method of a class private, but yet usable when such class is used as a receiver?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Wasabi375](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/discuss.kotlinlang.org/wasabi375/32/4741_2.png) [@Wasabi375](https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/u/Wasabi375)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2018, 12:22pm UTC](https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/t/receivers-and-private-methods/7991/2 "2018-06-02T12:22:28Z")

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So just so I understand you right you want to do something like this

```kotlin
class Foo {
    someIdentifier fun bar() {}
}

val f = Foo()
with(f) {
    bar()
}
f.bar() // compile error

```

As far as I know you can’t, not exactly. What you can do is hide some function inside of a special “context”, so that they can only be called from within that context. So you could do something like this:

```kotlin
class Foo{
	var i = 0
		private set

	fun test(){
		inc() // this is ok, because Foo.inc() is declared in the companion objct
                           // it would not work if Foo.inc() were part of a normal object
	}

	companion object {
		fun Foo.inc(){
			i++
		}
	}
}

val f = Foo()

with(Foo){
	f.inc()
}
with(f){
	inc() // error, we don't know about the functions of the companion here
}

with(Foo){
	with(f){
		inc() // this works, the with blocks can be switched
	}
}

```

I’m not sure if this helps you, but it’s all I can think of right now. Also I would consider using 2 with-blocks like that bad style. In general if you have to resort to something like this, it is a signal for a bad code design IMO.  
One more thing: you can not stack receivers more then twice, so if you have `with(a) { with(b) { with(c) { ... }}}` you can no longer access `a` using `this`. You can however still use `this@label`.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![coder](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/discuss.kotlinlang.org/coder/32/4885_2.png) [@coder](https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/u/coder)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2018, 1:37pm UTC](https://discuss.kotlinlang.org/t/receivers-and-private-methods/7991/3 "2018-06-02T13:37:33Z")

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Seems quite laborious but yeah I realize i can’t.