- Determine the class of an object.
- Get information about a class's modifiers, fields, methods, constructors, and superclasses.
- Find out what constants and method declarations belong to an interface.
- Create an instance of a class whose name is not known until runtime.
- Get and set the value of an object's field, even if the field name is unknown to your program until runtime.
- Invoke a method on an object, even if the method is not known until runtime.
- Create a new array, whose size and component type are not known until runtime, and then modify the array's components.
For each class, the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) maintains an immutable Class
object that contains information about the class. A Class
object represents, or reflects, the class. With the reflection API, you can invoke methods on a Class
object which return Constructor
, Method
, and Field
objects. You can use these objects to get information about the corresponding constructors, methods, and fields defined in the class.
Class objects also represent interfaces. You invoke Class
methods to find out about an interface's modifiers, methods, and public constants. Not all of the Class
methods are appropriate when a Class
object reflects an interface. For example, it doesn't make sense to invoke getConstructors
when the Class
object represents an interface.
Examining Classes
explains how to determine the class of an object, and how to get information about classes and interfaces.
Retrieving Class Objects
First things first. Before you can find out anything about a class, you must first retrieve its corresponding
Class
object.
Getting the Class Name
It's easy to find out the name of aClass
object. All you have to do is invoke thegetName
method.
Discovering Class Modifiers
This section shows you the methods you need to call to find out what modifiers a particular class has.
Finding Superclasses
In this section you'll learn how to retrieve all of the
Class
objects for the ancestors of a given class.
Identifying the Interfaces Implemented by a Class
If you want to find out what interfaces a class implements, then check out this section.
Examining Interfaces
In this section you'll learn how to tell if a
Class
object represents an interface or a class. You'll also get some tips on how to get more information about an interface.
Identifying Class Fields
This section shows you how to discover what fields belong to a class, and how to find out more about these fields by accessing
Field
objects.
Discovering Class Constructors
This section, which introduces the
Constructor
class, explains how to get information about a class's contructors.
Obtaining Method Information
To find out about a class's methods, you need to retrieve the corresponding
Method
objects. This section shows you how to do this.
Manipulating Objects shows you how to instantiate classes, get or set field values, and invoke methods. With the reflection API, you can perform these tasks even if the names of the classes, fields, and methods are unknown until runtime.
Creating Objects
How can you create an object if you don't know its class name until runtime? You'll find the answer in this section.Getting Field Values
In this section you'll learn how to get the values of an object's fields, even if you don't know the name of the object, or even its class, until runtime.Setting Field Values
Not only can you get field values at runtime, you can also set them. This section shows you how.Invoking Methods
This section shows you how to dynamically invoke methods. Given an object, you can find out what methods its class defines, and then invoke the methods.Working with Arrays describes the APIs used to create and to modify arrays whose names are not known until runtime.
Identifying Arrays
This section shows you how to determine if an object really is an array.Retrieving Component Types
If you want to find out the component type of an array, you'll want to check out the programming example in this section.Creating Arrays
This section shows you how simple it is to create arrays at run time.Getting and Setting Element Values
Even if you don't know the name of an array until run time, you can examine or modify the values of its elements. This section shows you how.Summary of Classes lists the classes that comprise the reflection API, and provides links to the apppropriate API documentation.
The following table summarizes the classes that compose the reflection API. The
Class
andObject
classes are in the java.langpackage. The other classes are contained in the java.lang.reflectpackage.
Class Description Array Provides static methods to dynamically create and access arrays. Class Represents, or reflects, classes and interfaces. Constructor Provides information about, and access to, a constructor for a class.
Allows you to instantiate a class dynamically.Field Provides information about, and dynamic access to, a field of a class
or an interface.Method Provides information about, and access to, a single method on a class
or interface. Allows you to invoke the method dynamically.Modifier Provides static methods and constants that allow you to get
information about the access modifiers of a class and its members.Object Provides the getClass
method.