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6) Overloading, overriding, runtime type and object orientation

Objective 3)

Write code to construct instances of any concrete class including normal top level classes inner classes static inner classes and anonymous inner classes.

Note on this Objective

Some of this material is covered elsewhere, notably in Objective 4.1

Instantiating a class

Concrete classes are classes that can be instantiated as an object reference (also simply called an object) . Thus an abstract class cannot be instantiated and so an object reference cannot be created. Remember that a class that contains any abstract methods the class itself is abstract and cannot be instantiated.

The key to instantiating a class is the use of the new keyword. This is typically seen as

Button b = new Button();

This syntax means that the variable name is of the type Button and contains a reference to an instance of the Button. However although the type of the reference is frequently the same as the type of the class being instantiated, it does not have to be. Thus the following is also legal

Object b = new Button();

This syntax indicates that the type of the reference b is Object rather than Button.

The declaration and instantiation need not occur on the same line. Thus can construct an instance of a class thus.

Button b;
b = new Button();

Inner classes were added with the release of JDK 1.1. They allow one class to be defined within another.

Inner classes

Inner classes were introduced with the release of JDK 1.1. They allow classes to be defined within other classes, and are sometimes referred to as nested classes. They are used extensively in the new 1.1 event handling model. You will almost certainly get questions about nested classes and scoping on the exam.

Here is a trivial example

class Nest{
	class NestIn{}
}

The output when this code is compiled is two class files. One, as you would expect is

Nest.class

The other is

Nest$NestIn.class

This illustrates that nesting classes is generally a naming convention rather than a new sort of class file. Inner classes allow you to group classes logically. They also have benefits in scoping benefits where you want to have access to variables.

Nested top level classes

A nested top level class is a static member of an enclosing top level class.

Thus to modify the previous trivial example

class Nest{
	static class NestIn{}
}

This type of nesting is frequently used simply to group related classes. Because the class is static it does not require an instance of the outer class to exist to instantiate the inner class.

Member classes

I think of a member class as an "ordinary inner class". A member class is analogous to other members of a class, you must instantiate the outer class before you can create an instance of the inner class. Because of the need to be associated with an instance of the outer class Sun introduced new syntax to allow the simultaneous creation of an instance of the outer class at the same time as the creation of an inner class. This takes the form

Outer.Inner i = new Outer().new Inner();

To make sense of the new syntax provided for this try to think of the keyword new as used in the above example as belonging to the current insistence of this,

Thus you could change the line that creates the instance of this to read

Inner i = this.new Inner();

Because a member class cannot exist without an instance of the outer class, it can have access to the variables of the outer class.

Classes created in methods

A more correct name for this is a local class, but thinking of them as created in methods gives a good flavour of where you are likely to come across them.

local classes can only access final fields or parameters of the enclosing method

A local class is visible only within it's code block or method. Code within a local class definition can only use final local variables of the containing block or parameters of the method. You are very likely to get a question on this in the exam.

Anonymous classes

Your first reaction to the idea of an anonymous inner class might be "why would you want to do that and how can you refer to it if it doesn't have a name?"

To answer these questions, consider the following.You might be in the situation of constantly having to think up names for instances of classes where the name was self evident. Thus with event handling the two important things to know are the event being handled and the name of the component that the handler is attached to. Giving a name to the instance of the event handling class does not add much value.

As to the question how can you refer to it if it doesn't have a name, well you can't and if you need to refer to it by name you should not create an anonymous class. The lack of a name has an additional side effect in that you cannot give it any constructors.

Anonymous classes cannot have constructors

Here is an example of the creation of an anonymous inner class

class Nest{
public static void main(String argv[]){
        Nest n = new Nest();
                n.mymethod(new anon(){});
       }
        public void mymethod(anon i){}
}
class anon{}

Note how the anonymous class is both declared and defined within the parenthesis of the call to mymethod.

Questions

Question 1)

Which of the following statements are true?

1) A class defined within a method can only access static methods of the enclosing method
2) A class defined within a method can only access final variables of the enclosing method
3) A class defined with a method cannot access any of the fields within the enclosing method
4) A class defined within a method can access any fields accessible by the enclosing method

Question 2)

Which of the following statements are true?

1) An anonymous class cannot have any constructors
2) An anonymous class can only be created within the body of a method
3) An anonymous class can only access static fields of the enclosing class
4) The class type of an anonymous class can be retrieved using the getName method

Question 3)

Which of the following statements are true?

1) Inner classes cannot be marked private
2) An instance of a top level nested class can be created without an instance of its enclosing class
3) A file containing an outer and an inner class will only produce one .class output file
4) To create an instance of an member class an instance of its enclosing class is required.

Answers

Answer 1)

2) A class defined within a method can only access final variables of the enclosing method

Such a class can access parameters passed to the enclosing method

Answer 2)

1) An anonymous class cannot have any constructors

Answer 3)

2) An instance of a top level nested class can be created without an instance of its enclosing class
4) To create an instance of an member class an instance of its enclosing class is required.

An inner class gets put into its own .class output file, using the format

Outer$Inner.class. 

A top level nested class is a static class and thus does not require an instance of the enclosing class. A member class is an ordinary non static class and thus an instance of its enclosing class is required.

Last updated
13 Jan 2000
copyright © Marcus Green 2000