Inner Class cannot have static method ?

[Saibabaa Pragada]

Hi, Please advice why inner class cannot have static method.

public class P665_MyOuter02_Ask {
    class MyInner02 {
	// The method seeOuter cannot be declared static; static methods can
	// only be declared in a static or top level type
	static void seeOuter() {
	}
    }
}    

[Stephan van Hulst]

What would be the point?

Inner classes exist only to perform some sort of helper function for the enclosing class. If you're going to give them static methods, you might as well give the static methods directly to the enclosing class.

[Prasad Kharkar]

I had done a small program regarding the inheritance and the static field declaration in inner classes
hope this is little useful to you

class InnerStaticInheritance {

	static class InnerSuperClass extends InnerStaticInheritance{// thia is valid, can extend non static outer class
		static int x = 56; // static members valid in the static inner class
		public void doMethod(){
			System.out.println("In the static inner class in doMethod " + x);
		}
	}

	class InnerSubClass extends InnerSuperClass {
		//static int z = 5; non static nested classes cannot have static members
		public void doMethod(){
			System.out.println("In the non static inner class");
		}
	}

	//static class InnerSubSubClass extends InnerSubClass{
	//}// above class does not compile because cannot reference this before the supertype is called

	public static void main(String[] args) {
		InnerStaticInheritance.InnerSuperClass a = new InnerStaticInheritance.InnerSuperClass();
		// we do not require the instance of outer class to instantiate the static inner class
		a.doMethod();
	}
}
/// inner static class can extend outer non static class    

[Saibabaa Pragada]

Thanks Stephan & Prasad