This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Brian McCallister. Original Post: Is it bad if I use pointers in Java? Feed Title: Waste of Time Feed URL: http://kasparov.skife.org/blog/index.rss Feed Description: A simple waste of time and weblog experiment Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Brian McCallister Latest Posts From Waste of Time

I frequently find myself writing code like:

    final boolean[] val = new boolean[] { false };
    mixed.forEach(new Closure()
    {
        public void execute(Object o)
        {
            val[0] = true;
        }
    });

in my unit tests for quick checks in order to get around the lack of explicit pointers in Java so that I can toggle a boolean in an anonymous inner class.

This feels like an awful hack, but does anyone know a better idiom?