Inner Classes Changing Access Rights Of Parent Members

Question

I read that if you access a parent class's private memebers or methods from within an inner class, those members of methods will automatically and silently be converted to having package access. This seems dangerous and I'd like to know how I could design around it.
Here is my current dilemma. I have an EventHandler class whose handleEvent() method changes with the object's state. I've implemented this using the Strategy Pattern, where the Strategy objects are inner classes of EventHandler. The problem is that these Strategy objects need access to certain private members and methods of their parent. There is no reason, however, to give package access to these members and methods. What can I do? Or does this suggest that I need a design change? Other than this issue, though, I'm quite happy with the design.
Thanks for any thoughts,
John

Answer 1

When inner classes access private fields or methods, the compiler generates new package-private methods
with names like "access$000":
import java.lang.reflect.*;
public class X {
    private void x() {}
    class Y {
        public void y() {
            x();
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Method[] methods = X.class.getDeclaredMethods();
        for(int i=0; i<methods.length; ++i)
            System.out.println(methods.getName());
So it's not correct that the access to fields or methods is changed, just that additional methods are added.
Unless you're in the habit of writing method names that contain '$', I think it's unlikely that you'll directly call
these new methods, and if you do, it should be easy to spot!