Private functions in Bash

Question

How can I declare a function as "private" in Bash?

Answer 1

Bash does not have the concept of public/private functions. All functions are public. However, it's common practice (across various programming and scripting languages including Bash) to let the names of functions begin with a double underscore if they're intended for private/internal use only.

__foo() {
  # this function is for internal use
  ...
}

bar() {
  # this function is for public use
  ...
}