What is the difference between public and private access specifiers in a class?

In C++, access specifiers are essential for encapsulating class members and controlling their visibility and accessibility. Public access specifiers allow members of a class to be accessible from outside the class itself. This means that any function or code that has visibility of a class object can access and manipulate its public members directly.

For instance, if you have a class with a public variable or method, any instance of that class can utilize those members freely, making it easier to interact with the class's data and functionalities from external code.

In contrast, private members are not accessible from outside the class, which means they can only be accessed from within the class itself or by friend functions. This encapsulation protects the internal state of the object and enforces controlled access, which is a fundamental aspect of object-oriented programming.

The incorrect options address misunderstandings regarding how access specifiers work. Members marked as private are not intended for access outside the class. Similarly, private members are not exclusively visible to derived classes; they are typically inaccessible to anything that is not part of the defining class itself, unless specific methods or friend declarations are used. Lastly, private members cannot be accessed publicly; doing so contradicts the purpose of having private access in the first place.