Implicit parent class/object reference

Question

Hello,
Is there any way I can get an implicitly reference to the class/object that instantiated a second object ? At the moment I have been doing this by creating this explicitly by passing the parent object as an argument through the constructor of the object to store it, but it would be nice if there was an implicit parent reference somewhere accessible from within the newly created object. Any thoughts about this ?
Many Thanks,
Rems

Answer 1

public class Thing {  // note: extends Object, implements no interface
  private Factory creator;
  Thing(Factory creator) {
    this.creator = creator;
  public void foo() {
    // do stuff here
public class DifferentThing // also extends Object, implements no interface, and doesn't subclass Thing
  private Factory anyName;
  DifferentThing(Factory whatever) {
    anyname = whatever;
  public int bar(String x) {
    // do completely different stuff here
public class Factory {
  public Object create(String s) {
    if (s.equals("Thing")) {
      return new Thing(this);
    } else if (s.equals("Different thing")) {
      return new DifferentThing(this);
    } else {
      return null;
}There you go. A brain-dead simple Factory class, that generates objects of different classes, which do not implement a common interface, and neither extends the other, yet both have a reference to the factory method that created them. All you have is a convention that the constructors of the classes in question take a Factory object as a parameter.