Reference inner class in Visualforce component

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I’m trying to build a VF component that references an attribute that is an instance of an inner class. I followed the suggestion here on the Apex boards but it does not compile for me using V28.0. (Note the boards post was about lists of inner class objects – I only need a single instance)

Interface, Apex class, VF component follow:

public interface VFComponentAttributable {
// To make inner classes available as VF component attributes
// http://boards.developerforce.com/t5/Visualforce-Development/Error-using-inner-class-in-component-attribute/td-p/147856
}

public with sharing class Foo {
   public class InnerBar implements VFComponentAttributable{
      public String  myVbl {get; set;}
  }
}    


<apex:component >
<!-- Generates compiler error 'Unknown property VFComponentAttributable.myVbl' -->
<apex:attribute name="bar"                      description="instance of inner class"
                type="VFComponentAttributable"          required="true"/>

<apex:outputText value="{!bar.myVbl}"/>  


<!-- This doesnt work either, generates compiler error  'Apex class InnerBar does not exist
<apex:attribute name="bar"                      description="instance of inner class"
                type="Foo.InnerBar" required="true"/>
<apex:outputText value="{!bar.myVbl}"/>             -->

I know I can refactor and make the inner class an outer class and it will work but I’d rather not if I can avoid it.

Answer

I’ve run across this as well and also resorted to refactoring my inner-class to the top level. The documentation isn’t clear on this, but considering that the type attribute is considered limited, I think it’s fair to assume that only top-level classes are supported. From the Visualforce Developer’s Guide (pg. 285):

Only the following data types are
allowed as values for the type attribute:

  • Primitives, such as String, Integer, or Boolean.
  • sObjects, such as Account, My_Custom_Object__c, or the generic sObject type.
  • One-dimensional lists, specified using array-notation, such as String[], or Contact[].
  • Maps, specified using type=”map”. You don’t need to specify the map’s specific data type.
  • Custom Apex types (classes).

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : cropredy , Answer Author : Adam

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