The Java Tutorials have been written for JDK 8. Examples and practices described in this page don't take advantage of improvements introduced in later releases and might use technology no longer available.
See Dev.java for updated tutorials taking advantage of the latest releases.
See Java Language Changes for a summary of updated language features in Java SE 9 and subsequent releases.
See JDK Release Notes for information about new features, enhancements, and removed or deprecated options for all JDK releases.
There are two categories of methods provided in
Class for accessing fields, methods, and constructors: methods which enumerate these members and methods which search for particular members. Also there are distinct methods for accessing members declared directly on the class versus methods which search the superinterfaces and superclasses for inherited members. The following tables provide a summary of all the member-locating methods and their characteristics.
Class API |
List of members? | Inherited members? | Private members? |
|---|---|---|---|
getDeclaredField() |
no | no | yes |
getField() |
no | yes | no |
getDeclaredFields() |
yes | no | yes |
getFields() |
yes | yes | no |
Class API |
List of members? | Inherited members? | Private members? |
|---|---|---|---|
getDeclaredMethod() |
no | no | yes |
getMethod() |
no | yes | no |
getDeclaredMethods() |
yes | no | yes |
getMethods() |
yes | yes | no |
Class API |
List of members? | Inherited members? | Private members? |
|---|---|---|---|
getDeclaredConstructor() |
no | N/A1 | yes |
getConstructor() |
no | N/A1 | no |
getDeclaredConstructors() |
yes | N/A1 | yes |
getConstructors() |
yes | N/A1 | no |
1 Constructors are not inherited.
Given a class name and an indication of which members are of interest, the
ClassSpyget*s() methods to determine the list of all public elements, including any which are inherited.
import java.lang.reflect.Constructor;
import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
import java.lang.reflect.Member;
import static java.lang.System.out;
enum ClassMember { CONSTRUCTOR, FIELD, METHOD, CLASS, ALL }
public class ClassSpy {
public static void main(String... args) {
try {
Class<?> c = Class.forName(args[0]);
out.format("Class:%n %s%n%n", c.getCanonicalName());
Package p = c.getPackage();
out.format("Package:%n %s%n%n",
(p != null ? p.getName() : "-- No Package --"));
for (int i = 1; i < args.length; i++) {
switch (ClassMember.valueOf(args[i])) {
case CONSTRUCTOR:
printMembers(c.getConstructors(), "Constructor");
break;
case FIELD:
printMembers(c.getFields(), "Fields");
break;
case METHOD:
printMembers(c.getMethods(), "Methods");
break;
case CLASS:
printClasses(c);
break;
case ALL:
printMembers(c.getConstructors(), "Constuctors");
printMembers(c.getFields(), "Fields");
printMembers(c.getMethods(), "Methods");
printClasses(c);
break;
default:
assert false;
}
}
// production code should handle these exceptions more gracefully
} catch (ClassNotFoundException x) {
x.printStackTrace();
}
}
private static void printMembers(Member[] mbrs, String s) {
out.format("%s:%n", s);
for (Member mbr : mbrs) {
if (mbr instanceof Field)
out.format(" %s%n", ((Field)mbr).toGenericString());
else if (mbr instanceof Constructor)
out.format(" %s%n", ((Constructor)mbr).toGenericString());
else if (mbr instanceof Method)
out.format(" %s%n", ((Method)mbr).toGenericString());
}
if (mbrs.length == 0)
out.format(" -- No %s --%n", s);
out.format("%n");
}
private static void printClasses(Class<?> c) {
out.format("Classes:%n");
Class<?>[] clss = c.getClasses();
for (Class<?> cls : clss)
out.format(" %s%n", cls.getCanonicalName());
if (clss.length == 0)
out.format(" -- No member interfaces, classes, or enums --%n");
out.format("%n");
}
}
This example is relatively compact; however the printMembers() method is slightly awkward due to the fact that the
java.lang.reflect.Member interface has existed since the earliest implementations of reflection and it could not be modified to include the more useful getGenericString() method when generics were introduced. The only alternatives are to test and cast as shown, replace this method with printConstructors(), printFields(), and printMethods(), or to be satisfied with the relatively spare results of
Member.getName().
Samples of the output and their interpretation follows. User input is in italics.
$ java ClassSpy java.lang.ClassCastException CONSTRUCTOR Class: java.lang.ClassCastException Package: java.lang Constructor: public java.lang.ClassCastException() public java.lang.ClassCastException(java.lang.String)
Since constructors are not inherited, the exception chaining mechanism constructors (those with a
Throwable parameter) which are defined in the immediate super class
RuntimeException and other super classes are not found.
$ java ClassSpy java.nio.channels.ReadableByteChannel METHOD Class: java.nio.channels.ReadableByteChannel Package: java.nio.channels Methods: public abstract int java.nio.channels.ReadableByteChannel.read (java.nio.ByteBuffer) throws java.io.IOException public abstract void java.nio.channels.Channel.close() throws java.io.IOException public abstract boolean java.nio.channels.Channel.isOpen()
The interface
java.nio.channels.ReadableByteChannel defines
read(). The remaining methods are inherited from a super interface. This code could easily be modified to list only those methods that are actually declared in the class by replacing get*s() with getDeclared*s().
$ java ClassSpy ClassMember FIELD METHOD Class: ClassMember Package: -- No Package -- Fields: public static final ClassMember ClassMember.CONSTRUCTOR public static final ClassMember ClassMember.FIELD public static final ClassMember ClassMember.METHOD public static final ClassMember ClassMember.CLASS public static final ClassMember ClassMember.ALL Methods: public static ClassMember ClassMember.valueOf(java.lang.String) public static ClassMember[] ClassMember.values() public final int java.lang.Enum.hashCode() public final int java.lang.Enum.compareTo(E) public int java.lang.Enum.compareTo(java.lang.Object) public final java.lang.String java.lang.Enum.name() public final boolean java.lang.Enum.equals(java.lang.Object) public java.lang.String java.lang.Enum.toString() public static <T> T java.lang.Enum.valueOf (java.lang.Class<T>,java.lang.String) public final java.lang.Class<E> java.lang.Enum.getDeclaringClass() public final int java.lang.Enum.ordinal() public final native java.lang.Class<?> java.lang.Object.getClass() public final native void java.lang.Object.wait(long) throws java.lang.InterruptedException public final void java.lang.Object.wait(long,int) throws java.lang.InterruptedException public final void java.lang.Object.wait() hrows java.lang.InterruptedException public final native void java.lang.Object.notify() public final native void java.lang.Object.notifyAll()
In the fields portion of these results, enum constants are listed. While these are technically fields, it might be useful to distinguish them from other fields. This example could be modified to use
java.lang.reflect.Field.isEnumConstant() for this purpose. The
EnumSpy
In the methods section of the output, observe that the method name includes the name of the declaring class. Thus, the toString() method is implemented by
Enum, not inherited from
Object. The code could be amended to make this more obvious by using
Field.getDeclaringClass(). The following fragment illustrates part of a potential solution.
if (mbr instanceof Field) {
Field f = (Field)mbr;
out.format(" %s%n", f.toGenericString());
out.format(" -- declared in: %s%n", f.getDeclaringClass());
}