Can we create public static abstract class in java?

I was searching in google for something and I got a code like

public static abstract class LocationResult{ public abstract void gotLocation(Location location); } 

It's a nested class but wondering how it could be accessible ?

2 Answers

It must be a nested class: the static keyword on the class (not methods within it) is only used (and syntactically valid) for nested classes. Such static member classes (to use Java in a Nutshell's common nomenculture) hold no reference to the enclosing class, and thus can only access static fields and methods within it (unlike non-static ones; see any summary of nested classes in Java (also known as inner classes).

It can be accessible like this:

public class EnclosingClass { public static abstract class LocationResult{ public abstract void gotLocation(Location location); } } EnclosingClass.LocationResult locationResult = ... 

Only nested classes can be static. By doing so you can use the nested class without having an instance of the outer class.

So you could create a class extending it using extends Mainclass.LocationResult and use it with Mainclass.LocationResult instance = ...