obtaining a reference to the calling object

[Murat Tasan]

i have a quick question... is there a way to obtain the reference to the
object which called the currently executing method?

here is the scenario, i have a class and a field which i would like to
populate with a reference to the object that constructed this current
object. i would attempt to accomplish this by setting the appropriate
field from within the constructor...

i figured it might be obtainable from the stack trace, but that doesn't
seem to work.

oh, and i do know that i could just add an extra parameter to the
constructor and from the calling method just pass "this", but i don't want
to have to trust that the people using my code will actually do this
correctly each time.

thanks for any input,

murat

--
Murat Tasan
mx**@po.cwru.edu
ta***@eecs.cwru.edu
mu*********@cwru.edu
http://genomics.cwru.edu

[Gregory A. Swarthout]

Murat Tasan <ta***@eecs.cwru.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.SOL.4.53.0401121353170.947@zoidberg>...

i have a quick question... is there a way to obtain the reference to the
object which called the currently executing method?

here is the scenario, i have a class and a field which i would like to
populate with a reference to the object that constructed this current
object. i would attempt to accomplish this by setting the appropriate
field from within the constructor...

i figured it might be obtainable from the stack trace, but that doesn't
seem to work.

What is the unworking code?

Greg

[nos]

"Murat Tasan" <ta***@eecs.cwru.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.SOL.4.53.0401121353170.947@zoidberg...

i have a quick question... is there a way to obtain the reference to the
object which called the currently executing method?

here is the scenario, i have a class and a field which i would like to
populate with a reference to the object that constructed this current
object. i would attempt to accomplish this by setting the appropriate
field from within the constructor...
Constructed or called?

i figured it might be obtainable from the stack trace, but that doesn't
seem to work.

oh, and i do know that i could just add an extra parameter to the
constructor and from the calling method just pass "this", but i don't want
to have to trust that the people using my code will actually do this
correctly each time.

thanks for any input,

murat

--
Murat Tasan
mx**@po.cwru.edu
ta***@eecs.cwru.edu
mu*********@cwru.edu
http://genomics.cwru.edu

[Murat Tasan]

really either. if "called", the called method would be a factory method,
which would at some point set the appropriate calling object parameter...
and if "constructed" the constructor would include nearly the same line.

so basically, if in a factory "called" method which has been called by a
method in object x, a new object y is created and the correct parameter in
y is set through something like this:

y.parentObject = x

(but without passing x (as a parameter set to value "this") from x, i
don't know how to get a reference to x)

if done in a constructor for y:

this.parentObject = x

but same problem again.

the reason i don't want to have people pass the parent object as a
parameter is it opens the door for incorrect objects to be passed... that
is let us assume that the constructor option is used and the constructor
includes a parameter for identifying the parent object... so from within x
there is a line in a method like so:

yClass y = new yClass(this);

that would work, but someone could also then do this:

yClass y = new yClass(z);

where z is some other object, possibly of the same class as x (so checking
the class of the object isn't enough to catch the problem).

i want to guarantee that the parentObject reference in y correctly points
to x by doing it automatically.

thanks again,

murat

On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, nos wrote:

"Murat Tasan" <ta***@eecs.cwru.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.SOL.4.53.0401121353170.947@zoidberg...

i have a quick question... is there a way to obtain the reference to the
object which called the currently executing method?

here is the scenario, i have a class and a field which i would like to
populate with a reference to the object that constructed this current
object. i would attempt to accomplish this by setting the appropriate
field from within the constructor...

Constructed or called?

i figured it might be obtainable from the stack trace, but that doesn't
seem to work.

oh, and i do know that i could just add an extra parameter to the
constructor and from the calling method just pass "this", but i don't want
to have to trust that the people using my code will actually do this
correctly each time.

thanks for any input,

murat

--
Murat Tasan
mx**@po.cwru.edu
ta***@eecs.cwru.edu
mu*********@cwru.edu
http://genomics.cwru.edu

--
Murat Tasan
mx**@po.cwru.edu
ta***@eecs.cwru.edu
mu*********@cwru.edu
http://genomics.cwru.edu

[Jared Dykstra]

Murat Tasan <ta***@eecs.cwru.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.SOL.4.53.0401131014290.1226@zoidberg>.. .

but same problem again.

the reason i don't want to have people pass the parent object as a
parameter is it opens the door for incorrect objects to be passed... that
is let us assume that the constructor option is used and the constructor
includes a parameter for identifying the parent object... so from within x
there is a line in a method like so:

You could add an extra parameter, and then add some assertions
ensuring the object is the desired instanceof.

....But this raises a bigger question. There should be no reason why
you would ever want to do this. If there are a number of possible
objects that a static method or other object can operate on, these
objects should share a common parent object or interface. Then you can
specify the interface and a classcastexception will result if abused.
Otherwise, it should produce some non-error result for every object
(like toString())

Rethink the design and odds are you can avoid this API. What you want
to do may be the only good option, but it sounds like a big hack, and
your maintenence concerns are wellfounded.

---
Jared Dykstra
http://www.bork.org/~jared