Is there something called Local Static Inner Class?

Question

i was just experimenting with inner classes and came across this idea of having local yet static inner class... well i made an inner class inside a static method.. well it's just simple as that.. Here's the example i did

  class Outer {

    static void m() {
        class LocalStatic {

            void s() {
                System.out.println("static local inner class method");
            }

        }
    }
}

class Demo {

    public static void main(String args[]) {

        Outer.m();
    }
}

This doesn't give any compile error.

I know how to access the static method m. But i want to know if there's a way to access the local class LocalStatic from an outside class.. Well as to my understanding, we can't access something inside a method right? Hence i can't access either LocalStatic or any methods or attributes inside that local class from outside of the class Outer Just wanted to make sure..

Answer 1

I want to know if there's a way to access the local class LocalStatic from an outside class

There isn't a way to do that. Local classes are, well, local, so the only way to access them is from the method in which the class is in scope^*.

You can access objects of a local class using non-local base class or an interface:

interface SomeInterface {
    void s();
}
class Outer {
    static SomeInterface m() {
        class LocalStatic implements SomeInterface {
            public void s() {
                System.out.println("static local inner class method");
            }
        }
        return new LocalStatic();
    }
}

Now you can write

SomeInterface i = Outer.m();
i.s();

Demo.

^* It goes without saying that there is also a way to access these classes through reflection, but that is outside capabilities of Java language itself.