protected variables

[Roman1]

This might be a stupid question, but does it make sense for a variable to be both PROTECTED and PRIVATE ?  I would have thought that PROTECTED variables are already PUBLIC.  For example, the following program would not compile unless the PROTECTED variable is explicitly made PUBLIC.

module mymod
   integer,protected:: a = 1
   private
   !public a
end module mymod   
   
!------------------------------------------   
   
program test_public
   use mymod, only: a
   implicit none
   write(*,*) a
   stop
end program test_public

[Steve_Lionel]

No, that combination doesn't make sense, though I cannot find words in the standard prohibiting it. I would think that the combination should be allowed though the PROTECTED attribute would never come into play.