Re: Getting a reference to enclosing instance without using literal
class name
Robert Dodier wrote:
Hello,
Given something like class Outer { class Inner {...} ... } and an
instance of Outer.Inner.
Is there any way to retrieve a reference to the enclosing instance
without mentioning the class name "Outer" ??
If you think about it... an inner class is just a concept maintained by
the compiler, so
class Outer {
class Inner {}
}
is really just:
class Outer {}
class Outer$$Inner {
private Outer that;
}
Where the private field is just used to maintain the illusion of a
connection. So my first thought is if it's private, you really ought to
make a public getter.
class Outer {
class Inner {
public Outer getOuter() { return Outer.this; }
}
}
But my second thought was that if it's just a field... you could
probably get at it with reflection somehow. This could be very brittle
since not all Java compilers will use the same naming convention, but it
might get you out of whatever jam you are in for now, assuming that the
public getter is not an option.
(I have no idea what this field is actually named. You'll have to build
a little test case to discover what your compiler does.)