Can I access the "secondary this" from an inner class?

Question

I have basic classes

abstract class Unit {
    Unit target;
    abstract class UnitAI {/*...*/}
}

From these, I have derived

class Infantry extends Unit {
    class InfantryAI extends UnitAI {/*...*/}
}

Can the class InfantryAI somehow get the secondary(implicit) this that is used for accessing the members of it's surrounding class Infantry?

Specifically, it needs to determine if its surrounding class Infantry is being targetted by its target, like this:

if (/*secondary_this.*/target.target == secondary_this)

or, generally, by another Unit.

@SotiriosDelimanolis The refference to the outer class; I guess I should have used the term *outer* `this`, instead of *secondary* `this`. — Stefan Stanković, Aug 23 '16 at 18:24
@SotiriosDelimanolis Thanks, I'm a little unclear on the proper terminology... I searched for "access from inner class", but only found questions related to member access, not the object refference. — Stefan Stanković, Aug 23 '16 at 18:33

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 23 '16 at 18:12

6

You can access the outer this by prepending the classname:

Infantry.this.target; //"this" of the Infantry class from inside InfantryAI
Unit.this.target; //"this" of the Unit class from inside UnitAI

This doesn't work with static nested classes though as they don't belong to a instance of the outer class.

edited Aug 23 '16 at 18:12

Sotirios Delimanolis

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answered Aug 23 '16 at 17:59

tkausl

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Can I access the "secondary this" from an inner class?

1 Answers1