Reference to an inner class

This is an example of how to make a reference to an inner class. In order to make a reference to an inner class we have created a class with inner classes, as described in the steps below:

• We have created a class, InnerClass1 that has an int field and a method int value() that returns an int field.
• We have also created a class, InnerClass2 that has a String field, and a constructor that initializes its String field to a given String. It has a method String readLabel() that returns the String field of the class.
• Both classes are inner classes of ReferenceInnerClass.
• The class has a method InnerClass2 to(String s) that returns a new InnerClass2 object initialized with the given String field.
• It also has a method InnerClass1 cont() that returns a new InnerClass1 object initialized by its default constructor.
• Another method of ReferenceInnerClass is void ship(String dest), where it calls cont() method to get a new InnerClsas1 object and then to(String s) to get a new InnerClass2 object and prints the the field of InnerClass2 using its readLabel() method.
• We create a new instance of ReferenceInnerClass, and call its ship(String dest) method with a given String.
• Then we create a new ReferenceInnerClass object, and follow the same steps as ship(String dest) method, but calling the cont() and to(String s) methods of the inner classes.

Let’s take a look at the code snippet that follows:  

package com.javacodegeeks.snippets.core;

public class ReferenceInnerClass {

    class InnerClass1 {


  private int i = 11;


  public int value() {


return i;

  }
    }

    class InnerClass2 {


  private String destination;


  InnerClass2(String where) {


destination = where;

  }


  String readLabel() {


return destination;

  }
    }

    public InnerClass2 to(String s) {

  return new InnerClass2(s);
    }

    public InnerClass1 cont() {

  return new InnerClass1();
    }

    public void ship(String dest) {

  InnerClass1 c = cont();

  InnerClass2 d = to(dest);

  System.out.println(d.readLabel());
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {

  ReferenceInnerClass p = new ReferenceInnerClass();

  p.ship("Athens");

  ReferenceInnerClass q = new ReferenceInnerClass();

  // Defining references to inner classes:

  ReferenceInnerClass.InnerClass1 c = q.cont();

  ReferenceInnerClass.InnerClass2 d = q.to("Thessaloniki");
    }
}

  
This was an example of how to make a reference to an inner class in Java.