Accessing inner protected class with .new

Question

My weak understanding is that inner classes are no different in terms of access modification as other class members, thus I was expecting the following to compile:
package A;
public class ClassA {
    protected void protectedMethod() {}
    protected class ProtectedInnerClass {}
}is being used over here in package B
package B;
import A.*;
public class ClassB extends ClassA {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ClassB b = new ClassB();
b.protectedMethod(); // works fine. I am inheriting ClassA and calling the protected method.
ClassB.ProtectedInnerClass c = b.new ProtectedInnerClass(); // compiler error: ProtectedInnerClass is protected
}Why can I not access the protected inner class when ClassB is inheriting it as is the case with the protected method?
thanks in advance!

Answer 1

So classes that inherit other classes with protected inner classes will not be able to instantiate these inner classes regardless of the inheritance relationship.No, that's not true. Example:
package A;
public class ClassA {
     protected void protectedMethod() {
     protected class ProtectedInnerClass { // class is protected
          public ProtectedInnerClass() { } // <-- nota bene
package B;
import A.ClassA;
public class ClassB extends ClassA {
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          ClassB b = new ClassB();
          b.protectedMethod(); // works fine.
          ClassB.ProtectedInnerClass c = b.new ProtectedInnerClass(); // works fine, too.
}It's section 6.6.2.2 that describes this behavior, as I quoted above. The last bullet point of that section reads (to repeat): "A protected constructor can be accessed by a class instance creation expression (that does not declare an anonymous class) only from within the package in which it is defined."
~