Overview

Both Java and JavaScript are high-level languages meaning that they both provide strong abstraction from the computer details. It is relatively straightforward to express a high-level language to low-level one (for example to translate Java to Assembly). However, there are technical difficulties when it comes to translating one high-level concept to another. Such difficulties are largely known as impedance mismatch. This article explains how the deal with the impedance mismatch when it comes to working with Java inner and nested types.

Java Nested Types

Here is a short example that summarizes the relation between Java nested and inner types.

public class Outer {
    public class Inner {
      // inner and nested class
    }

    public static class Nested {
      // nested but not inner class
    }
}

In short, an instance of inner types hold a reference to an instance of the outer type. You can find more information in the Java language specification (http://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/jls/se8/html/). Here is a Java example how to instantiate the objects:

Outer outer = new Outer();
Outer.Inner inner1 = outer.new Inner();

Outer.Inner inner2 = new Outer().new Inner();

Outer.Nested nested = new Outer.Nested()

NativeScript for Android supports both nested and inner types. Here is the translated example from above:

var outer = new Outer();

var inner1 = new outer.Inner();     

var inner2 = new new Outer().Inner();

var nested =  new Outer.Nested();

Accessing Static Members

NativeScript for Android supports accessing static members of inner/nested types as well.

var c = android.hardware.Camera.Parameters.ANTIBANDING_50HZ;

In the previous example the constant ANTIBANDING_50HZ which is defined in the inner class Parameters of the class android.hardware.Camera is assigned to the variable c.