Getting hold of the outer class object from the inner class object

user_133830 0
Viewed 164011

I have the following code. I want to get hold of the outer class object using which I created the inner class object inner. How can I do it?

public class OuterClass {

    public class InnerClass {
        private String name = "Peakit";
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        OuterClass outer = new OuterClass();
        InnerClass inner = outer.new InnerClass();
       // How to get the same outer object which created the inner object back?
        OuterClass anotherOuter = ?? ;

        if(anotherOuter == outer) {
             System.out.println("Was able to reach out to the outer object via inner !!");
        } else {
             System.out.println("No luck :-( ");
        }
    }
}

EDIT: Well, some of you guys suggested of modifying the inner class by adding a method:

public OuterClass outer() {
   return OuterClass.this;
}

But what if I don't have control to modify the inner class, then (just to confirm) do we have some other way of getting the corresponding outer class object from the inner class object?

inner-classes java
7 Answers
/**
 * Not applicable to Static Inner Class (nested class)
 */
public static Object getDeclaringTopLevelClassObject(Object object) {
    if (object == null) {
        return null;
    }
    Class cls = object.getClass();
    if (cls == null) {
        return object;
    }
    Class outerCls = cls.getEnclosingClass();
    if (outerCls == null) {
        // this is top-level class
        return object;
    }
    // get outer class object
    Object outerObj = null;
    try {
        Field[] fields = cls.getDeclaredFields();
        for (Field field : fields) {
            if (field != null && field.getType() == outerCls
                    && field.getName() != null && field.getName().startsWith("this$")) {
                field.setAccessible(true);
                outerObj = field.get(object);
                break;
            }
        }
    } catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return getDeclaringTopLevelClassObject(outerObj);
}

Of course, the name of the implicit reference is unreliable, so you shouldn't use reflection for the job.

user_81536400
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