Setting outer variable from anonymous inner class

Question

Is there any way to access caller-scoped variables from an anonymous inner class in Java?

Here's the sample code to understand what I need:

public Long getNumber(final String type, final String refNumber, final Long year) throws ServiceException {
    Long result = null;
    try {
        Session session = PersistenceHelper.getSession();
        session.doWork(new Work() {
                public void execute(Connection conn) throws SQLException {
                    CallableStatement st = conn.prepareCall("{ CALL PACKAGE.procedure(?, ?, ?, ?) }");
                    st.setString(1, type);
                    st.setString(2, refNumber);
                    st.setLong(3, year);
                    st.registerOutParameter(4, OracleTypes.NUMBER);
                    st.execute();
                    result = st.getLong(4) ;
                }
            });
    } catch (Exception e) {
        log.error(e);
    }
    return result;
}

The code is in a DAO service class. Obviously it doesn't compile, because it asks that result be final, if it is -- it doesn't compile because I try to modify a final var. I'm bound to JDK5. Other than dropping the doWork() altogether, is there a way to set the result value from within doWork()?

Answer 1

Java doesn't know that doWork is going to be synchronous and that the stack frame that result is in will still be there. You need to alter something that isn't in the stack.

I think this would work

 final Long[] result = new Long[1];

and then

 result[0] = st.getLong(4);

in execute(). At the end, you need to return result[0];