this

[blug]

Hey guys, Im a bit confused. Im studying for my exams but I hit a bit of a snag. Looking in examples I see alot..

variable1 = this;

I have used this before in methods like...

public int randomMethod(int lolol){
this.lolol = lolol;
return lolol;
}

What does "this" on its own refer to?

Thanks!

[pbrockway2]

"this" is a reference to the instance whose method has been called. It has the same meaning in the expression "this.lolol=lolol".

[Singing Boyo]

Why on earth someone would assign a variable to refer to 'this' is beyond me. Pass to a method, return from a method, sure, but assign? no clue - seems a bit redundant if you ask me.

Anyway, as pbrockway said, it refers to the instance who's method has been called, or the current instance of the class you are in.

[blug]

Thanks guys, and yeah singing, the book I am reading has a lot of toy examples =D

[Singing Boyo]

Ah, its from a book. That explains it then... The redundancy in programming books and official tutorials never ceases to amaze me :rolleyes:

[DarrylBurke]

Ah, its from a book. That explains it then... The redundancy in programming books and official tutorials never ceases to amaze me :rolleyes:

This of it this way: if that example hadn't been in the book, blug still wouldn't understand the concept of the this keyword.

Now do you still think it's redundant?

db

[j2me64]

Why on earth someone would assign a variable to refer to 'this' is beyond me.

look at this link

The most common reason for using the this keyword is because a field is shadowed by a method or constructor parameter.

my personal opinion: even if the keyword is not necessery in a piece of code it makes the code more comprehensible.

[pbrockway2]

look at this link



my personal opinion: even if the keyword is not necessery in a piece of code it makes the code more comprehensible.

I think it was assignment of this to some other variable to some other variable that SingingBoyo was drawing attention to. Which I've never had occasion to use (for whatever that's worth).

[Singing Boyo]

This of it this way: if that example hadn't been in the book, blug still wouldn't understand the concept of the this keyword.

Now do you still think it's redundant?

db

Its still redundant. Not necessarily useless, but it's certainly redundant to show examples that will never/extremely rarely be used, just to show the full capability of a keyword. Assigning something to refer to 'this' is inherently redundant. What are you going to do with it? v = this; v.method(); is a bit pointless if you ask me.