Can one read the contents of a private variable in a contract outside the contract? [duplicate]

Question

Can one view (externally) the contents of a private variable defined in a contract? Or, the only way one can view (externally) is by declaring the variable public or having an external function returning its value?

Asking because I know that even if a variable is declared private it still resides on the public blockchain so wanted to confirm if there are any other ways to read the variable like via eth.getStorageAt() API or something.

If the answer to this question is 'Yes' then please also tell me how can I do it.

I have seen elsewhere on this site people mentioning it's possible but nowhere it's described how. It's also mentioned that it can be seen outside the contract in a blockchain explorer like etherscan.io etc. but I haven't been successful so far.

For example, I have the below solidity contract:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-3.0

pragma solidity 0.7.4;

contract Test {
    
    uint private balance;
    
    string public name;
    
    constructor() payable{
        balance = 22;
        name = "Ross";
    }
    
    function updateBalance(uint _balance) external {
        balance = _balance;
    }
    
    function updateName(string calldata _name) external {
        name = _name;
    }
}

deployed on Kovan test network here: https://kovan.etherscan.io/tx/0x44084a920eb995ba66c91b9f54b03096a9403c7519b35619a4d9650c64d2533b but I am not able to figure how to read the value of balance on etherscan.

Answer 1

I think one can view the content of the private variable. Declaring the private variable private does not mean someone cannot have access to it. It just means that if another contract inherit this contract the other contract won't be able to modify the private variable value but that does not prevent anyone who wants to retrieve the value of the variable from reading it. I think the issue you have is that you have not yet set up a get function for the variable. Try adding this to your code:

function getbalance() public view returns (uint){ return balance; }