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Accessing the containing class of an inner class in Java

This is what I'm doing now. Is there a better way to access the super class?

public class SearchWidget {
    private void addWishlistButton() {
        final SearchWidget thisWidget = this;
        button.addClickHandler(new ClickHandler() {
            public void onClick(ClickEvent event) {
                // A better way to access the super class?
                // something like "this.super" ...?
                workWithWidget(thisWidget);
            }
        }
    }
}

I'm programming with Google Web Toolkit, but I think this is really a generic Java question.

Solution

  • You can use what is called the qualified this.

    JLS 15.8.4. Qualified This

    Any lexically enclosing instance can be referred to by explicitly qualifying the keyword this.

    Let C be the class denoted by ClassName. Let n be an integer such that C is the n-th lexically enclosing class of the class in which the qualified this expression appears. The value of an expression of the form ClassName.this is the n-th lexically enclosing instance of this (§8.1.3). The type of the expression is C. It is a compile-time error if the current class is not an inner class of class C or C itself.

    In this case, you can do what Martijn suggests, and use:

    workWithWidget(SearchWidget.this);

    References

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