Java questions which don't deserve their own thread, yet.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Java questions which don't deserve their own thread, yet.

gotly: Oct 28, 2007; Economy-Sized

Sorry if this is really basic, it's been about 3-4 years since I've done any real Java and I don't know how to Google this because that's exactly what it's about : this.

When is it appropriate and when is it inappropriate to reference a variable/function/anything as this.exampleThing instead of just exampleThing? No need to re-invent the wheel, if someone could point me at the correct search term I'd really appreciate it. So far, I've just found "it's a style thing" which is kind of insane. Why put "this" in front of every god drat thing if it's not needed?

Edit:

stackoverflow posted:

You only need to use this - and most people only use it - when there's an overlapping local variable with the same name. (Setter methods, for example.)

Of course, another good reason to use this is that it causes intellisense to pop up in IDEs

Really? Really?

gotly fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Sep 3, 2011

# ¿ Sep 3, 2011 03:58

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 29, 2024 18:31

gotly: Oct 28, 2007; Economy-Sized

carry on then posted:

Yeah, the only time I've ever seen it is when a parameter and an instance variable have the same name, or an instance variable and a local variable. (edit: I guess a parameter is just a local variable, isn't it?)
code:
public class MyClass {
    int number; //BUTTS

    public MyClass(int number) { //CHEWBACCA
        this.number = number;
    }
}
I'm sure with a bit of work you could always make sure the names are different. What's the consensus on which one is best?

Just to make sure I have it 100% - in this case, MyClass will actually change BUTTS and leave CHEWBACCA alone?

# ¿ Sep 3, 2011 04:30

gotly: Oct 28, 2007; Economy-Sized

Thanks guys, cleared it up a lot. I program in something drastically different during the day so it's always nice to see what seasoned Java guys consider best practice. Also, if I could write production code like baquerd I'd die a happy man.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2011 05:31

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Java questions which don't deserve their own thread, yet.