• "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> Oct 21 2007
• "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> Oct 21 2007
• BCS <ao pathlink.com> Oct 21 2007

"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:

Just trying to get my head around inner classes (a new concept for me).

OK, so inner classes get a hidden "context pointer" to the enclosing
instance. So far so good. But how does that interoperate with
inheritance. For example:

class Outer
{

    class InnerA
    {
    }

    class InnerB : InnerA
    {
    }
}

Is it the case that InnerB has both a super class (InnerA) and an
outer class (Outer), and, further, that it's super class has an outer
class (also Outer)? So an instance of InnerB can refer to "outer",
"super" and "super.outer" (where "outer" and "super.outer" are the
same thing?)

Let's get even more bizarre:

class OuterA
{
    class Inner A
    {
    }
}

class VeryConfused : OuterA.InnerA
{
}

I'm not sure that even makes sense. It's very hard to wrap my head
around. Is that nonsense?

What are inner classes good for anyway?

"Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:

"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.494.1193001500.16939.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...
 Just trying to get my head around inner classes (a new concept for me).

 OK, so inner classes get a hidden "context pointer" to the enclosing
 instance. So far so good. But how does that interoperate with
 inheritance. For example:

 class Outer
 {

    class InnerA
    {
    }

    class InnerB : InnerA
    {
    }
 }

 Is it the case that InnerB has both a super class (InnerA) and an
 outer class (Outer), and, further, that it's super class has an outer
 class (also Outer)? So an instance of InnerB can refer to "outer",
 "super" and "super.outer" (where "outer" and "super.outer" are the
 same thing?)


Instances of InnerB are instances of InnerA.  Just like in normal 
inheritance, InnerB inherits InnerA's 'outer' member.  Since it's all 
handled by the compiler, I'd imagine it's smart enough not to redeclare a 
new 'outer' member in InnerB.

 Let's get even more bizarre:

 class OuterA
 {
    class Inner A
    {
    }
 }

 class VeryConfused : OuterA.InnerA
 {
 }

 I'm not sure that even makes sense. It's very hard to wrap my head
 around. Is that nonsense?


AFAIR that won't compile.  Inner classes can only be extended by other 
non-static inner classes in the same outer class.  Other uses would be very 
tricky to implement and probably be useless.

 What are inner classes good for anyway?


Things.  ;)

I've run into uses for them with about as much frequency as uses for inner 
functions (which, in my coding style, is to say "fairly often").  They're 
useful when you need to model an "owner-owned" relationship.  Class literals 
(a form of nested classes) can also come up when doing some clever things. 

BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:

Reply to Janice,


 Let's get even more bizarre:
 
 class OuterA
 {
 class Inner A
 {
 }
 }
 class VeryConfused : OuterA.InnerA
 {
 }


as already pointed out that doesn't work. What also doesn't work (but I whish 
did work) is this

class OuterA
{
  class Inner A
  {
  }
}
class OuterB : OuterA
{
  class VeryConfused : OuterA.InnerA
  {
  }
}

 I'm not sure that even makes sense. It's very hard to wrap my head
 around. Is that nonsense?
 
 What are inner classes good for anyway?
 


say you need to pass around handles that must be used only with the object 
the created them, or you want to be able to pass object from collection to 
collection and need to transfer ownership with them. In both cases the inner 
class can reach back to it's owner and do something.