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Lecture 11 Inner Class

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9 views

Lecture 11 Inner Class

Uploaded by

Abcd Efgh
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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You are on page 1/ 10

Maharaja Agrasen Institute of Technology

CIC-212
Java Programming

Inner Classes
Inner classes
 All the classes so far have been “top level”
 It is possible (and useful) to define a class inside
another class
 The usual access modifiers (public, protected,
private) can be used
 Inner classes were not in Java 1.0
 They had to be added in later

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Four kinds of inner classes
 Member classes
 Simple and useful
 Anonymous classes
 Useful, but syntax is ugly
 Static member classes (not too useful)
 Local classes (not too useful)

Every class compiles to a separate .class file

Inner classes compile to files with a $ in their names


3
Member classes
 A member class is an “ordinary” inner class
class Outer {
int n;

class Inner {
int ten = 10;
void setNToTen( ) { n = ten; }
}

void setN ( ) {
new Inner( ).setNToTen( );
}
}

4
Member classes II
 Member classes are often used to handle events:

 Button b = new Button ("Click Me");


b.addActionListener (new Clicker( ));
…
class Clicker implements ActionListener { … }

 A member class can access the variables of the enclosing


class
 This is what makes them so useful!
 Member classes are very easy
 Declare them where you would declare a field or a method

5
Anonymous inner classes
 Anonymous inner classes are convenient for short code
(typically a single method)
 b.addActionListener(anonymous inner class);
 The anonymous inner class can be either:
 new Superclass(args) { body }
 or
 new Interface() { body }
 Notice that no class name is given--only the name of the
superclass or interface
 If it had a name, it wouldn’t be anonymous, now would it?
 The args are arguments to the superclass’s constructor
(interfaces don’t have constructors)
6
Example anonymous inner class
 An ActionListener is a Java-supplied interface for
listening to Buttons and some other things
 The format (from the previous slide) is
new Interface () { body }

b.addActionListener (new ActionListener( ) {


public void actionPerformed (ActionEvent e) {
System.out.println (“Ouch!”);
}});
 Like member classes, anonymous inner classes have full
access to the fields and methods of the containing class

7
Static member classes
 static class StaticMember { … }
 A static member class can access only static
variables of the outer class
 A static member class isn’t “really” an inner
class, but a top-level class that happens to be
written inside another class
 Static member classes are not too useful

8
Local classes
 A local class is a class defined inside a method
 Like any other local declarations, the class declaration
is available only within that method
 However, objects created from that local class can
“escape” the class by being assigned to nonlocal
variables
 Because its instances may exist after the method
exits, code in the local class cannot access
variables declared in the method unless they are
declared final
 This makes them practically useless
 There are many other restrictions on local classes
9
Summary
 Member classes
 An ordinary class, just defined within another
 Has full access to the variables of the enclosing class
 Anonymous classes
 Useful for short Listeners used in only one place
 Has full access to the variables of the enclosing class
 Static member classes
 Defined inside another class, but acts like an outer class
 Local classes
 Defined within a method
 Can access final variables in the enclosing class

10

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