Nested type problem

Question

I just tried to create this simple implementation:

class Test
{
   private int abc = 0;

   public class TestClass
   {
      private void changeABC()
      {
         abc = 123;
      }
   }
}

If I compile it, it will complain:

Cannot access a non-static member of outer type 'A.Test' via nested type 'B.Test.TestClass'

I dont like the solution of setting: static int abc = 0;

Is there any other solution for this?

Answer 1

You are probably coming from a Java background where this code would work as expected.

In C#, nested types are static (in the parlance of Java), i.e. they are not bound to an instance of the parent class. This is why your code fails. You need to somehow pass an instance of the parent class to the child class and access its member abc.