How are variables assigned in PHP classes?

Public variables allow you to modify them directly as fields as instead of going through public methods. Add the following lines:

    $cat1 = new Cat( "CodeCat" );
    echo $cat1->meow();
    $cat1->name = "Another Cat";
    echo $cat1->meow();

You will see:

Meow meow. CodeCat
Meow meow. Another Cat

You are able to change the value of $name even after construction.

With a private property:

Change the accessor of $name to private from public, you will get this error:

Fatal error: Cannot access private property Cat::$name

when trying to assign it a value from the $cat1 object.