Could we have classes inside methods

[Chandhrasekar Saravanan]

Hai ,
could we have classes inside methods, so
whenever we call a method so that the other
class also gets instantiated and can we use the
other class method from the method we call.
thanks
regards

[Rodney Woodruff]

You can have classes inside a method but that class would only exist until the program exited the method.

[Cindy Glass]

Yes, those would be local classes.
From the JLS: 14.2 Local Class Declarations
[ June 19, 2002: Message edited by: Cindy Glass ]

[Jessica Sant]

whew.... not quite sure if I understand the question... but it *sorta* sounds like you're looking for a local class, or an anonymous class
These are discussed a lot in the Programmer's Certification Study Forum -- do a quick search in there - I'm sure you'll find some great thread.
Check out this one, it seems promising: A class defined within a method

[arun mahajan]

oops never thought on this..must be interesting..would like to come back after some trials..thanks for such a good thought...
Arun

[Jim Yingst]

You can have classes inside a method but that class would only exist until the program exited the method.
No, the class can continue to exist afterwards - it just can't be referenced as that class from elsewhere in the code. But if a local class implements an interface, you can pass an instance of the local class off to some other object, and the instance can continue to exist, and be referenced as an instance of the interface, long after the method has completed execution.

[Michael Matola]

For an example of what Jim's talking about, take a look at Vector's elements method:

public Enumeration elements() 
{
    return new Enumeration() 
    {
        int count = 0;
 
        public boolean hasMoreElements() 
        {
            return count < elementCount ;
        }
 
        public Object nextElement() 
        {
            synchronized (Vector.this) 
            {
                if (count < elementCount) 
                {
                    return elementData[count++];
                }
            }
            throw new NoSuchElementException( "Vector Enumeration" );
        }
    } ;
}