accesslib

In Java, variables refer to instances of objects. There's no way to refer to the reference of a variable, in order to indirectly change to what object it refers. accesslib provides an abstract mechanism for manipulating references (as opposed to manipulating objects).

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Version	Formats
2005-10-04T22:55	​zip

Example

A quick example:

class Example {

        int i;

        void manipulate(Accessor a)
        {
                if(a.getType() == String.class) {
                        a.setValue("Hello, world!");
                } else if(a.getType() == Integer.class) {
                        a.setValue(new Integer(13));
                }
        }

        void foobar()
        {
                HashMap map = new HashMap();
                Accessor a = new MapAccessor(map, "my key", String.class);
                manipulate(a);

                // Prints "Hello, world!".
                System.out.println(map.get("my key"));

                i = 0;
                a = new IAccessor();
                manipulate(a);

                // Prints "13".
                System.out.println(i);
        }

        class IAccessor implements Accessor {
                void Class getType() { return Integer.class; }
                void clearValue() { i = 0; }
                Object getValue() { return Integer.valueOf(i); }
                void setValue(Object value) { i = ((Integer)value).intValue(); }
        }
}