I'm working on a design for a RowSet based DTO and I was wanting to group constants up in a named inner class that the main class could expose. Something like the code below. This works fine within the package, but when I try to reference any of the constants outside the package, I get a compile time error "Field is not visible". Is it possible to do this (without making all the constant classes full blown public classes)?

A reference like below works within the UserRowSet package, but not outside it:
  UserRowset.RESULT_COLUMNS.USERID;


public class UserRowSet extends CachedRowSet{
    public static final RESULT_COLUMNS = new UserRowSet().new QueryColumns();

    // class impl
    class ResultColumns{
       public static final String USERID = "USERID";
       public static final String FIRSTNAME = "FIRSTNAME";
    }
}

Make the innner class public i.e.

public class ResultColumns {...}

Dmitriy.

I mean it still should be inner class.

That works. For some reason, I thought you could not declare public inner classes. Thanks.

You are welcome.

Dmitriy.

Dmitriy,John
    Is there any vantage , when we put all the constants into a public inner class ? instead of using an interface or a static class???

I would personally use standalone pubplic class.

D.

any specific reason ? instead of an interface ?

Sri