Access modifier for members of method local inner class.

[Deepak Jain]

Hi,
As Method local inner class are accisible only within the method in which its declared and hence a method local inner classs is not visible outside the method in which its declared. As a result of this it does not make any sense to have access like coderanch,protected and default access to the members of the method local inner class because we can never pass a reference to a method local inner class instance to any other method because the inner classs will not be visible outside.
Is my understanding correct? If yes then why does compiler allow the memebers of the method local inner class to have above modifiers?
Thanks
Deepak

[Kelvin Chenhao Lim]

You could have one method local inner class extend another, in which case it would matter whether your members are private or not. For example, this compile isn't legal:

class Foo  {
  public static void main(String... args) {
    class Bar { private int bar; }
    class Baz extends Bar { { this.bar = 1; } }
  }
}

You have to change the access modifier of Bar.bar to default, protected, or public for the above program to compile.

(I do agree that this is rarely useful in practice, though.)

[Jim Yingst]

Often, local classes may implement interfaces, in which case they must implement public methods. Likewise in inner class may extend another class (not just another inner class) - in which case, it must use appropriate access modifiers when overriding methods.

It's true that there may be many methods and fields of local classes for which access modifiers are irrelevant. I usually just omit modifiers in this case, rather than typing "public" or "private" and letting the reader wonder what that means. Of course, a default modifier means something too. But the point is, if you need a particular type of modifier, use it, and if it doesn't matter what modifier you use, don't worry about it.