Cannot refer to a non-final variable inside an inner class defined in a different method

Question

Java doesn't support true closures, even though using an anonymous class like you are using here (new TimerTask() { ... }) looks like a kind of closure.

edit - See the comments below - the following is not a correct explanation, as KeeperOfTheSoul points out.

This is why it doesn't work:

The variables lastPrice and price are local variables in the main() method. The object that you create with the anonymous class might last until after the main() method returns.

When the main() method returns, local variables (such as lastPrice and price) will be cleaned up from the stack, so they won't exist anymore after main() returns.

But the anonymous class object references these variables. Things would go horribly wrong if the anonymous class object tries to access the variables after they have been cleaned up.

By making lastPrice and price final, they are not really variables anymore, but constants. The compiler can then just replace the use of lastPrice and price in the anonymous class with the values of the constants (at compile time, of course), and you won't have the problem with accessing non-existent variables anymore.

Other programming languages that do support closures do it by treating those variables specially - by making sure they don't get destroyed when the method ends, so that the closure can still access the variables.

@Ankur: You could do this:

public static void main(String args[]) {
    int period = 2000;
    int delay = 2000;

    Timer timer = new Timer();

    timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(new TimerTask() {
        // Variables as member variables instead of local variables in main()
        private double lastPrice = 0;
        private Price priceObject = new Price();
        private double price = 0;

        public void run() {
            price = priceObject.getNextPrice(lastPrice);
            System.out.println();
            lastPrice = price;
        }
    }, delay, period);      
}

To avoid strange side-effects with closures in java variables referenced by an anonymous delegate must be marked as final, so to refer to lastPrice and price within the timer task they need to be marked as final.

This obviously won't work for you because you wish to change them, in this case you should look at encapsulating them within a class.

public class Foo {
    private PriceObject priceObject;
    private double lastPrice;
    private double price;

    public Foo(PriceObject priceObject) {
        this.priceObject = priceObject;
    }

    public void tick() {
        price = priceObject.getNextPrice(lastPrice);
        lastPrice = price;
    }
}

now just create a new Foo as final and call .tick from the timer.

public static void main(String args[]){
    int period = 2000;
    int delay = 2000;

    Price priceObject = new Price();
    final Foo foo = new Foo(priceObject);

    Timer timer = new Timer();
    timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(new TimerTask() {
        public void run() {
            foo.tick();
        }
    }, delay, period);
}

You can only access final variables from the containing class when using an anonymous class. Therefore you need to declare the variables being used final (which is not an option for you since you are changing lastPrice and price), or don't use an anonymous class.

So your options are to create an actual inner class, in which you can pass in the variables and use them in a normal fashion

or:

There is a quick (and in my opinion ugly) hack for your lastPrice and price variable which is to declare it like so

final double lastPrice[1];
final double price[1];

and in your anonymous class you can set the value like this

price[0] = priceObject.getNextPrice(lastPrice[0]);
System.out.println();
lastPrice[0] = price[0];

Good explanations for why you can't do what you're trying to do already provided. As a solution, maybe consider:

public class foo
{
    static class priceInfo
    {
        public double lastPrice = 0;
        public double price = 0;
        public Price priceObject = new Price ();
    }

    public static void main ( String args[] )
    {

        int period = 2000;
        int delay = 2000;

        final priceInfo pi = new priceInfo ();
        Timer timer = new Timer ();

        timer.scheduleAtFixedRate ( new TimerTask ()
        {
            public void run ()
            {
                pi.price = pi.priceObject.getNextPrice ( pi.lastPrice );
                System.out.println ();
                pi.lastPrice = pi.price;

            }
        }, delay, period );
    }
}

Seems like probably you could do a better design than that, but the idea is that you could group the updated variables inside a class reference that doesn't change.

With anonymous classes, you are actually declaring a "nameless" nested class. For nested classes, the compiler generates a new standalone public class with a constructor that will take all the variables it uses as arguments (for "named" nested classes, this is always an instance of the original/enclosing class). This is done because the runtime environment has no notion of nested classes, so there needs to be a (automatic) conversion from a nested to a standalone class.

Take this code for example:

public class EnclosingClass {
    public void someMethod() {
        String shared = "hello"; 
        new Thread() {
            public void run() {
                // this is not valid, won't compile
                System.out.println(shared); // this instance expects shared to point to the reference where the String object "hello" lives in heap
            }
        }.start();

        // change the reference 'shared' points to, with a new value
        shared = "other hello"; 
        System.out.println(shared);
    }
}

That won't work, because this is what the compiler does under the hood:

public void someMethod() {
    String shared = "hello"; 
    new EnclosingClass$1(shared).start();

    // change the reference 'shared' points to, with a new value
    shared = "other hello"; 
    System.out.println(shared);
}

The original anonymous class is replaced by some standalone class that the compiler generates (code is not exact, but should give you a good idea):

public class EnclosingClass$1 extends Thread {
    String shared;
    public EnclosingClass$1(String shared) {
        this.shared = shared;
    }

    public void run() {
        System.out.println(shared);
    }
}

As you can see, the standalone class holds a reference to the shared object, remember that everything in java is pass-by-value, so even if the reference variable 'shared' in EnclosingClass gets changed, the instance it points to is not modified, and all other reference variables pointing to it (like the one in the anonymous class: Enclosing$1), will not be aware of this. This is the main reason the compiler forces you to declare this 'shared' variables as final, so that this type of behavior won't make it into your already running code.

Now, this is what happens when you use an instance variable inside an anonymous class (this is what you should do to solve your problem, move your logic to an "instance" method or a constructor of a class):

public class EnclosingClass {
    String shared = "hello";
    public void someMethod() {
        new Thread() {
            public void run() {
                System.out.println(shared); // this is perfectly valid
            }
        }.start();

        // change the reference 'shared' points to, with a new value
        shared = "other hello"; 
        System.out.println(shared);
    }
}

This compiles fine, because the compiler will modify the code, so that the new generated class Enclosing$1 will hold a reference to the instance of EnclosingClass where it was instantiated (this is only a representation, but should get you going):

public void someMethod() {
    new EnclosingClass$1(this).start();

    // change the reference 'shared' points to, with a new value
    shared = "other hello"; 
    System.out.println(shared);
}

public class EnclosingClass$1 extends Thread {
    EnclosingClass enclosing;
    public EnclosingClass$1(EnclosingClass enclosing) {
        this.enclosing = enclosing;
    }

    public void run() {
        System.out.println(enclosing.shared);
    }
}

Like this, when the reference variable 'shared' in EnclosingClass gets reassigned, and this happens before the call to Thread#run(), you'll see "other hello" printed twice, because now EnclosingClass$1#enclosing variable will keep a reference to the object of the class where it was declared, so changes to any attribute on that object will be visible to instances of EnclosingClass$1.

For more information on the subject, you can see this excelent blog post (not written by me): http://kevinboone.net/java_inner.html