Static member-class varaiable instanciation

Question

Hello,
I have an inner class which I'm trying instanciate as a static variable. here is the code:
public class A {
protected static B b;
private A (){} //private constructor because B is singleton
class B {
//some code
=========================================================
I cannot say
protected static B b = new B();
because new operator returns this.new_instance_of_B, and "this" cannot be referenced from the static constant...
How can I instanciate this variable (b)?? Thank you,
Elana

Answer 1

You could make the class static but depending on how the class is written you might be better off just instatiating b in your constuctor. I question declaring b protected. You can not subclass a singleton (no public constructor), therefore there is no reason to declare b protected. If you want other classes to access b from inside the package just use package level (default) access. Having a static member of a singleton that isn't private seems to violoate the purpose of the Singleton pattern though. I don't know what you are trying ot do but I would declare your class like this.
public class A {
    private static B b;
    private A (){
        b = new B();
    private class B {
        //some code
}