How to get an specific object instance!

[ramya narayanan]

Dear All,
I want to get an object instance in some other class .
Consider this

 
class A extends Panel
{
int i;
}

   

 
class B extends Panel
{

// Here i want to get the A instance where A'sinstance.i=10;
}

  

We can create many instances of A & one particular instance has the state i as 10.
I want to use that A instance in my class B.
Is it possible?
Note however classes A & B don't have any direct relationship between them.
Only thing they both have same super class Panel.

Regards

[Swastik Dey]

For just creating an instance you dont need any relationship , you need relationship(extend another class) only when you need method overriding.

A a1=new A();//should solve your requirement.

[ramya narayanan]

For just creating an instance you dont need any relationship , you need relationship(extend another class) only when you need method overriding.

A a1=new A();//should solve your requirement.

I need to have an instance or reference to an instance in my class.
But where is that instance?
It is there in the heap!
I know its memory id like 12edcf34 bla bla bla.
How to get that instance & use it in my class B

  
class B
{
A aref=//you should say how to fetch that from the heap
}

  

Regards

[Robin John]

REFLECTION ??

[ramya narayanan]

How?
Regards

[Swastik Dey]

Are you talking about hashcode?

[Ankit Garg]

ramya so you don't want a reference of an object in your class but you want to copy an instance of another class in your class. But I think that's not possible...

[Swastik Dey]

A aref=//you should say how to fetch that from the heap

I dont think this valid, because in aref you can only store reference to the instance/object, not its hashcode or memory id or whatever it is.

What you need is probably this

A aref=new A();
String id=aref.toString();

provided toString() is not overridden in class A.

[ramya narayanan]

Dear All,

ramya so you don't want a reference of an object in your class but you want to copy an instance of another class in your class.

I do want a reference of an object in my class, but the object is currently existing .( I don't want to create a new instance using
A afef=new A() )
How to get a reference to that existing object?
Can we use reflection?
If yes how?
Regards

[Swastik Dey]

A bref=aref; // A aref=new A() has been already done.

now bref refers to the same object.

[Robin John]

hey, you know its existing ?? if existing where did you create it?? and if you have already created it and you know that... you just use 'aref' right ??

[Tony Docherty]

ramya narayanan wrote:We can create many instances of A & one particular instance has the state i as 10.
I want to use that A instance in my class B.

The obvious and simplest way is to pass a reference of the particular A instance into the B object.

Note however classes A & B don't have any direct relationship between them.
Only thing they both have same super class Panel.

Both extending the same class is not a useful relationship unless the root class keeps a static list of all instances created (and that's incredibly unlikely).

If B needs to know about a particular A instance then you need to have some form of relationship between them. This can be an indirect relationship eg B calls a method in C which returns the A instance or D calls a method in C which returns the A instance and then passes it to B but there has to be some sort of relationship. You can't think I know there's an A object somewhere in memory and so I'll just search the heap until I find it - this sort of thing just isn't allowed in Java and for very good reasons.

[fred rosenberger]

If the object exists in the heap, then one of two conditions holds

1) There is no active reference to it. It CANNOT be 'found' on the heap, even if you do know the exact memory address (at least to the best of my knowledge).

2) This IS an active reference to it. If so, you can either use that reference, or make a copy of that reference, and use that to get to the object.