Programmatically get name of object?

Question

Is it possible to call a method on a object to get the name of that object---the variable name, not the name of its class?
Example:
Person fred = new Person();
Person barney = new Person();
List names = new ArrayList();
names.add(fred);
names.add(barney);
for (Object o : names) {
     System.out.println(o.methodThatGivesObjectName()); // should print "fred" and "barney"
     //...print out other info about the object...
}It seems like this should be possible, but maybe it's not. BTW, I know I could add a "name" field in this example, but I actually want to do this with other objects, like arrays.
Thanks,
Gregory

Answer 1

GregoryGarretson wrote:
Is it possible to call a method on a object to get the name of that object---the variable name, not the name of its class?
Example:
Person fred = new Person();
Person barney = new Person();
List names = new ArrayList();
names.add(fred);
names.add(barney);
for (Object o : names) {
     System.out.println(o.methodThatGivesObjectName()); // should print "fred" and "barney"
     //...print out other info about the object...
What if you add the following code before putting the objects in the list?
Person wilma = fred;
Person betty = barney;You've now got two variables pointing to each object. Which one is the object's "name" and why?
And if you add this code after adding to the list but before printing
Person tmp = fred;
fred = barney;
barney = tmp;Now fred and barney have swapped which object each points to. What are the "names" of the objects now, and why?