Best way to access variables from actionCommand

Question

Say I have a method which reads some data from a file, then stores it in a string. I have a button in this method with an ActionListener defined as follows:
                btnOk.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
                   public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                       otherMethod();
                });Now I need to pass the value of my string to this other method. What's the best way of doing this? Currently I have it declared at the top of the class but it seems a bit messy. I know I could declare the string final, but I need to set it conditionally depending on another variable, so I'd need to declare it before I initialize it's value. If it's declared final this won't work. Is the method I'm using now the usual way of doing this?

Answer 1

Echilon wrote:
Say I have a method which reads some data from a file, then stores it in a string. I have a button in this method with an ActionListener defined as follows:It's not great practice for a GUI event listener to call something that does file I/O. It'll lead to a sluggish interface, since I/O is slow.
A better solution is to invoke code that will cause the I/O to happen in a different thread. I think that Swing actually has built-in support for that, but I don't use Swing much so I don't know.
Now I need to pass the value of my string to this other method. What's the best way of doing this? Currently I have it declared at the top of the class but it seems a bit messy. I know I could declare the string final, but I need to set it conditionally depending on another variable, so I'd need to declare it before I initialize it's value.That doesn't necessarily mean that you can't declare it final. Final just means that once you assign it, you can't change it. You can still set its initial value conditionally.
I agree that it's messy to use fields for no other purpose than to pass values between methods.