Why make private inner class member public in Java?

Question

What is the reason of declaring a member of a private inner class public in Java if it still can\'t be accessed outside of containing class? Or can it?

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Answer 1

There are many combinations of access modifiers which are not useful. A public method in a private inner class is only useful if it implements a public method in a public class/interface.

public class DataStructure {
    // ...

    private class InnerEvenIterator implements Iterator {
        // ...

        public boolean hasNext() { // Why public?
            // ...
        }
    }

    public Iterator iterator() {
        return new InnerEvenIterator();
    }
}

BTW: abstract classes often have public constructors when actually they are protected