Getting hold of the outer class object from the inner class object

Question

I have the following code. I want to get hold of the outer class object using which I created the inner class object inner. How can I do it?

public class OuterClass {

    public class InnerClass {
        private String name = "Peakit";
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        OuterClass outer = new OuterClass();
        InnerClass inner = outer.new InnerClass();
       // How to get the same outer object which created the inner object back?
        OuterClass anotherOuter = ?? ;

        if(anotherOuter == outer) {
             System.out.println("Was able to reach out to the outer object via inner !!");
        } else {
             System.out.println("No luck :-( ");
        }
    }
}

EDIT: Well, some of you guys suggested of modifying the inner class by adding a method:

public OuterClass outer() {
   return OuterClass.this;
}

But what if I don't have control to modify the inner class, then (just to confirm) do we have some other way of getting the corresponding outer class object from the inner class object?

Answer 1

Within the inner class itself, you can use OuterClass.this. This expression, which allows to refer to any lexically enclosing instance, is described in the JLS as Qualified this.

I don't think there's a way to get the instance from outside the code of the inner class though. Of course, you can always introduce your own property:

public OuterClass getOuter() {
    return OuterClass.this;
}

EDIT: By experimentation, it looks like the field holding the reference to the outer class has package level access - at least with the JDK I'm using.

EDIT: The name used (this$0) is actually valid in Java, although the JLS discourages its use:

The $ character should be used only in mechanically generated source code or, rarely, to access pre-existing names on legacy systems.