The 'this' keyword

[Alan Smith]

Hi all,

I just came across this method in a piece of code I am maintaining:

public final JSONArray put(final Object value) {
        this.BACKING_LIST.add(value);
        return this;
}

I regards to the 'this' reference... I understand that 'this.BACKING_LIST' is a reference to this classes field called BACKING_LIST. What I don't understand is the 'return this' statement. What does 'this' refer to here? Does it refer to the BACKING_LIST that was referenced on the previous line; in other words could that line be re written as 'return this.BACKING_LIST;'?

Thanks,
Alan

[Yogesh Gnanapraksam]

this is a reference to the current object

More details here

Just try printing 'this' to the console..