[java] How are Anonymous inner classes used in Java?

They're commonly used as a verbose form of callback.

I suppose you could say they're an advantage compared to not having them, and having to create a named class every time, but similar concepts are implemented much better in other languages (as closures or blocks)

Here's a swing example

myButton.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        // do stuff here...
    }
});

Although it's still messily verbose, it's a lot better than forcing you to define a named class for every throw away listener like this (although depending on the situation and reuse, that may still be the better approach)