Calling a method in an owning object

Question

I have an application that involves an object (B) that is a member (not a sub-class) of another object (A). Within the owned object (B) I want to call up a method from the owning object A. E.g I would like to do something like this:
class A
object B; // B is a member of A
methodX( )
class B
owner.methodX( ); // invoke the methodX that is a member of object A.
Is this possible and how can i do it?

Answer 1

No, there is no implicit reference to an "owning" object. Think about the following code:
class Parent {
  Child child
  Parent(Child child) { this.child = child; }
  void doSomething() {}
class Child {
class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
   Child child = new Child();
   Parent p1 = new Parent(child);
   Parent p2 = new Parent(child);
}So the two instances of Parent both have a reference to the same instance of Child. Which one is the "owner"?
You'll have to explicitly give your "child" object a reference to the "owner" object in order to call methods on it