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

Question

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?

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Answer 1

The more general answer to this question involves shadowed variables and how they are accessed.

In the following example (from Oracle), the variable x in main() is shadowing Test.x:

class Test {
    static int x = 1;
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        InnerClass innerClassInstance = new InnerClass()
        {
            public void printX()
            {
                System.out.print("x=" + x);
                System.out.println(", Test.this.x=" + Test.this.x);
            }
        }
        innerClassInstance.printX();
    }

    public abstract static class InnerClass
    {
        int x = 0;

        public InnerClass() { }

        public abstract void printX();
    }
}

Running this program will print:

x=0, Test.this.x=1

More at: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se7/html/jls-6.html#jls-6.6