Why a nested class can instantiate an abstract class?

Question

Hi people!
I'm studying for a SCJP 6, and i encountered this question that i can figure it out but i don't find any official information of my guess.
I have the following code:
public class W7TESTOQ2 {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
       // dodo dodo1 = new dodo();
        dodo dodo2 =new dodo(){public String get(){return "filan";}};
        dodo.brain b = dodo2.new brain(){public String get(){return "stored ";}};
        System.out.print(dodo2.get()+" ");
        System.out.println(b.get());
abstract class dodo
    public String get()
        return "poll";
    abstract class brain
        public abstract String get();
}I know that abstract classes cannot be instantiated but i see that in this example, with a nested anonymous class it does (dodo and brain classes). My guess is that declaring the nested class it makes a subclass of the abstract class and doing so it can be instantiated. But i can't find any documentation about this.
Does anybody know?
Really thanks in advance.
Regards,
Christian Vielma

Answer 1

cvielma wrote:
Another question about this. Why can't i declare a constructor in the nested class? (it gives me return type required)You cannot declare a constructor, because in one line you're declaring a new class (the anonymous inner class) as well as constructing an instance of it.
What you can do, however, is if the abstract class (or the superclass, in any case, it doesn't need to be abstract) defines several constructors, you can call them.
public abstract MyClass {
    public MyClass() {
        // Default do nothing constructor
    public MyClass(String s) {
        // Another constructor
// Elsewhere
MyClass myclass = new MyClass("Calling the string constructor") {
};But you can't define your own constructors in the anonymous inner class.
Also, since the class is anonymous, what would you name the constructor? :)
Edited by: Kayaman on 26.6.2010 22:37