CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javainheritance
mik01aj
mik01aj

Reputation: 12372

How to access a superclass method from a nested class?

I hope this code explains the problem:

class Foo {
    void a() { / *stuff */ }
}

class Bar extends Foo {
    void a() { throw new Exception("This is not allowed for Bar"); }

    class Baz {
        void blah() {
            // how to access Foo.a from here?
        }
    }
}

I know that I may be doing something wrong, because inheritance perhaps shouldn't be used in such way. But it's the easiest way in my situation. And, beside that, I'm just curious. Is it possible?

Upvotes: 8

Views: 3671

Answers (2)

ILMTitan
ILMTitan

Reputation: 11017

Bar.super.a() appears to work.

Per JLS section 15.12

ClassName . super . NonWildTypeArguments_opt Identifier ( ArgumentList_opt )

is a valid MethodInvocation

Upvotes: 16

Michael Myers
Michael Myers

Reputation: 191865

You can call any method from the outer class with Outer.this.method().

But methods are resolved at runtime, so if you have overridden it in your subclass, only the subclass method (Bar.a()) can access the original (by calling super.a()).

As you probably discovered, you can't write Bar.this.super.a() -- but even if you could, it would still give you Bar.a(), not Foo.a().

Upvotes: 3

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