static final field in public nested class

Question

I have such code:

public class Foo {
    public class Bar implements Parcelable {
        public static final Parcelable.Creator<Type> CREATOR =
                   new Parcelable.Creator<Type>() {
                   @Override
                   ....
        }
    }
}

Eclipse says:

The field CREATOR cannot be declared static in a non-static inner type, unless 
initialized with a constant expression

Please tell me what is it? I think it is because I have a nested class, but I don't know, how to correct the mistake.

Answer 1

A inner class (non-static nested class) can not have any static methods. because

An inner class is implicitly associated with an instance of its outer class, it cannot define any static methods itself.

For an outer class Foo, you can access a static method test() like this:

Foo.test();

For a static inner class Bar , you can access its static method innerTest() like this:

Foo.Bar.innerTest();

However, if Bar is not static, there is now no static way to reference the method innerTest(). Non-static inner classes are tied to a specific instance of their outer class.