Java Reflection Tutorial for Classes, Methods, Fields, Constructors, Annotations and much more

Reflection in java provides ability to inspect and modify the runtime behavior of applications. Reflection is one of the advance topic of core java. Using reflection we can inspect a class,interface, enums, get their structure, methods and fields information at runtime even though class is not accessible at compile time. We can also use reflection to instantiate an object, invoke it’s methods, change field values.

1. Reflection in Java
2. Reflection for Classes
   • Get Class Object
   • Get Super Class
   • Get Public Member Classes
   • Get Declared Classes
   • Get Declaring Class
   • Getting Package Name
   • Getting Class Modifiers
   • Get Type Parameters
   • Get Implemented Interfaces
   • Get All Public Methods
   • Get All Public Constructors
   • Get All Public Fields
   • Get All Annotations
3. Reflection for Fields
   • Get Public Field
   • Field Declaring Class
   • Get Field Type
   • Get/Set Public Field Value
   • Get/Set Private Field Value
4. Reflection for Methods
   • Get Public Method
   • Invoking Public Method
   • Invoking Private Methods
5. Reflection for Constructors
   • Get Public Constructor
   • Instantiate Object using Constructor
6. Reflection for Annotations

Reflection in Java

Reflection is a very powerful concept and it’s of little use in normal programming but it’s the backbone for most of the Java, J2EE frameworks. Some of the frameworks that use reflection are:

1. JUnit – uses reflection to parse @Test annotation to get the test methods and then invoke it.
2. Spring – dependency injection, read more at Spring Dependency Injection
3. Tomcat web container to forward the request to correct module by parsing their web.xml files and request URI.
4. Eclipse auto completion of method names
5. Struts
6. Hibernate

The list is endless and they all use reflection because all these frameworks have no knowledge and access of user defined classes, interfaces, their methods etc.

We should not use reflection in normal programming where we already have access to the classes and interfaces because of following drawbacks.

• Poor Performance – Since reflection resolve the types dynamically, it involves processing like scanning the classpath to find the class to load, causing slow performance.
• Security Restrictions – Reflection requires runtime permissions that might not be available for system running under security manager. This can cause you application to fail at runtime because of security manager.
• Security Issues – Using reflection we can access part of code that we are not supposed to access, for example we can access private fields of a class and change it’s value. This can be a serious security threat and cause your application to behave abnormally.
• High Maintenance – Reflection code is hard to understand and debug, also any issues with the code can’t be found at compile time because the classes might not be available, making it less flexible and hard to maintain.

Reflection for Classes

In java, every object is either a primitive type or reference. All the classes, enums, arrays are reference types and inherit from java.lang.Object. Primitive types are – boolean, byte, short, int, long, char, float, and double.

java.lang.Class is the entry point for all the reflection operations. For every type of object, JVMinstantiates an immutable instance of java.lang.Class that provides methods to examine the runtime properties of the object and create new objects, invoke its method and get/set object fields.

In this section, we will look into important methods of Class, for convenience, I am creating some classes and interfaces with inheritance hierarchy.

package com.journaldev.reflection;public interface BaseInterface {public int interfaceInt=0;void method1();int method2(String str);}

package com.journaldev.reflection;public class BaseClass {public int baseInt;private static void method3(){System.out.println("Method3");}public int method4(){System.out.println("Method4");return 0;}public static int method5(){System.out.println("Method5");return 0;}void method6(){System.out.println("Method6");}// inner public classpublic class BaseClassInnerClass{}//member public enumpublic enum BaseClassMemberEnum{}}

package com.journaldev.reflection;@Deprecatedpublic class ConcreteClass extends BaseClass implements BaseInterface {public int publicInt;private String privateString="private string";protected boolean protectedBoolean;Object defaultObject;public ConcreteClass(int i){this.publicInt=i;}@Overridepublic void method1() {System.out.println("Method1 impl.");}@Overridepublic int method2(String str) {System.out.println("Method2 impl.");return 0;}@Overridepublic int method4(){System.out.println("Method4 overriden.");return 0;}public int method5(int i){System.out.println("Method4 overriden.");return 0;}// inner classespublic class ConcreteClassPublicClass{}private class ConcreteClassPrivateClass{}protected class ConcreteClassProtectedClass{}class ConcreteClassDefaultClass{}//member enumenum ConcreteClassDefaultEnum{}public enum ConcreteClassPublicEnum{}//member interfacepublic interface ConcreteClassPublicInterface{}}

Let’s look at some of the important refection methods for classes.

Get Class Object

We can get Class of an object using three methods – through static variable class, usinggetClass() method of object and java.lang.Class.forName(String fullyClassifiedClassName). For primitive types and arrays, we can use static variable class. Wrapper classes provide another static variable TYPE to get the class.

// Get Class using reflectionClass<?> concreteClass = ConcreteClass.class;concreteClass = new ConcreteClass(5).getClass();try {// below method is used most of the times in frameworks like JUnit//Spring dependency injection, Tomcat web container//Eclipse auto completion of method names, hibernate, Struts2 etc.//because ConcreteClass is not available at compile timeconcreteClass = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass");} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {e.printStackTrace();}System.out.println(concreteClass.getCanonicalName()); // prints com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass//for primitive types, wrapper classes and arraysClass<?> booleanClass = boolean.class;System.out.println(booleanClass.getCanonicalName()); // prints booleanClass<?> cDouble = Double.TYPE;System.out.println(cDouble.getCanonicalName()); // prints doubleClass<?> cDoubleArray = Class.forName("[D");System.out.println(cDoubleArray.getCanonicalName()); //prints double[]Class<?> twoDStringArray = String[][].class;System.out.println(twoDStringArray.getCanonicalName()); // prints java.lang.String[][]

getCanonicalName() returns the canonical name of the underlying class. Notice that java.lang.Class uses Generics, it helps frameworks in making sure that the Class retrieved is subclass of framework Base Class. Check out Java Generics Tutorial to learn about generics and its wildcards.

Get Super Class

getSuperclass() method on a Class object returns the super class of the class. If this Class represents either the Object class, an interface, a primitive type, or void, then null is returned. If this object represents an array class then the Class object representing the Object class is returned.

Class<?> superClass = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getSuperclass();System.out.println(superClass); // prints "class com.journaldev.reflection.BaseClass"System.out.println(Object.class.getSuperclass()); // prints "null"System.out.println(String[][].class.getSuperclass());// prints "class java.lang.Object"

Get Public Member Classes

getClasses() method of a Class representation of object returns an array containing Class objects representing all the public classes, interfaces and enums that are members of the class represented by this Class object. This includes public class and interface members inherited from superclasses and public class and interface members declared by the class. This method returns an array of length 0 if this Class object has no public member classes or interfaces or if this Class object represents a primitive type, an array class, or void.

Class<?>[] classes = concreteClass.getClasses();//[class com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassPublicClass, //class com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassPublicEnum, //interface com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassPublicInterface,//class com.journaldev.reflection.BaseClass$BaseClassInnerClass, //class com.journaldev.reflection.BaseClass$BaseClassMemberEnum]System.out.println(Arrays.toString(classes));

Get Declared Classes

getDeclaredClasses() method returns an array of Class objects reflecting all the classes and interfaces declared as members of the class represented by this Class object. The returned array doesn’t include classes declared in inherited classes and interfaces.

//getting all of the classes, interfaces, and enums that are explicitly declared in ConcreteClassClass<?>[] explicitClasses = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getDeclaredClasses();//prints [class com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassDefaultClass, //class com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassDefaultEnum, //class com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassPrivateClass, //class com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassProtectedClass, //class com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassPublicClass, //class com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassPublicEnum, //interface com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassPublicInterface]System.out.println(Arrays.toString(explicitClasses));

Get Declaring Class

getDeclaringClass() method returns the Class object representing the class in which it was declared.

Class<?> innerClass = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass$ConcreteClassDefaultClass");//prints com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClassSystem.out.println(innerClass.getDeclaringClass().getCanonicalName());System.out.println(innerClass.getEnclosingClass().getCanonicalName());

Getting Package Name

getPackage() method returns the package for this class. The class loader of this class is used to find the package. We can invoke getName() method of Package to get the name of the package.

//prints "com.journaldev.reflection"System.out.println(Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.BaseInterface").getPackage().getName());

Getting Class Modifiers

getModifiers() method returns the int representation of the class modifiers, we can usejava.lang.reflect.Modifier.toString() method to get it in the string format as used in source code.

System.out.println(Modifier.toString(concreteClass.getModifiers())); //prints "public"//prints "public abstract interface"System.out.println(Modifier.toString(Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.BaseInterface").getModifiers())); 

Get Type Parameters

getTypeParameters() returns the array of TypeVariable if there are any Type parameters associated with the class. The type parameters are returned in the same order as declared.

//Get Type parameters (generics)TypeVariable<?>[] typeParameters = Class.forName("java.util.HashMap").getTypeParameters();for(TypeVariable<?> t : typeParameters)System.out.print(t.getName()+",");

Get Implemented Interfaces

getGenericInterfaces() method returns the array of interfaces implemented by the class with generic type information. We can also use getInterfaces() to get the class representation of all the implemented interfaces.

Type[] interfaces = Class.forName("java.util.HashMap").getGenericInterfaces();//prints "1"System.out.println(Arrays.toString(interfaces));//prints "[interface java.util.Map, interface java.lang.Cloneable, interface java.io.Serializable]"System.out.println(Arrays.toString(Class.forName("java.util.HashMap").getInterfaces()));

Get All Public Methods

getMethods() method returns the array of public methods of the Class including public methods of it’s superclasses and super interfaces.

Method[] publicMethods = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getMethods();//prints public methods of ConcreteClass, BaseClass, ObjectSystem.out.println(Arrays.toString(publicMethods));

Get All Public Constructors

getConstructors() method returns the list of public constructors of the class reference of object.

//Get All public constructorsConstructor<?>[] publicConstructors = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getConstructors();//prints public constructors of ConcreteClassSystem.out.println(Arrays.toString(publicConstructors));

Get All Public Fields

getFields() method returns the array of public fields of the class including public fields of it’s super classes and super interfaces.

//Get All public fieldsField[] publicFields = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getFields();//prints public fields of ConcreteClass, it's superclass and super interfacesSystem.out.println(Arrays.toString(publicFields));

Get All Annotations

getAnnotations() method returns all the annotations for the element, we can use it with class, fields and methods also. Note that only annotations available with reflection are with retention policy of RUNTIME, check out Java Annotations Tutorial.
We will look into this in more details in later sections.

java.lang.annotation.Annotation[] annotations = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getAnnotations();//prints [@java.lang.Deprecated()]System.out.println(Arrays.toString(annotations));

Reflection for Fields

Reflection API provides several methods to analyze Class fields and modify their values at runtime, in this section we will look into some of the commonly used reflection functions for methods.

Get Public Field

In last section, we saw how to get the list of all the public fields of a class. Reflection API also provides method to get specific public field of a class through getField() method. This method look for the field in the specified class reference and then in the super interfaces and then in the super classes.

Field field = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getField("interfaceInt");

Above call will return the field from BaseInterface that is implemented by ConcreteClass. If there is no field found then it throws NoSuchFieldException.

Field Declaring Class

We can use getDeclaringClass() of field object to get the class declaring the field.

try {Field field = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getField("interfaceInt");Class<?> fieldClass = field.getDeclaringClass();System.out.println(fieldClass.getCanonicalName()); //prints com.journaldev.reflection.BaseInterface} catch (NoSuchFieldException | SecurityException e) {e.printStackTrace();}

Get Field Type

getType() method returns the Class object for the declared field type, if field is primitive type, it returns the wrapper class object.

Field field = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getField("publicInt");Class<?> fieldType = field.getType();System.out.println(fieldType.getCanonicalName()); //prints int

Get/Set Public Field Value

We can get and set the value of a field in an Object using reflection.

Field field = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getField("publicInt");ConcreteClass obj = new ConcreteClass(5);System.out.println(field.get(obj)); //prints 5field.setInt(obj, 10); //setting field value to 10 in objectSystem.out.println(field.get(obj)); //prints 10

get() method return Object, so if field is primitive type, it returns the corresponsing Wrapper Class. If the field is static, we can pass Object as null in get() method.

There are several set*() methods to set Object to the field or set different types of primitive types to the field. We can get the type of field and then invoke correct function to set the field value correctly. If the field is final, the set() methods throw java.lang.IllegalAccessException.

Get/Set Private Field Value

We know that private fields and methods can’t be accessible outside of the class but using reflection we can get/set the private field value by turning off the java access check for field modifiers.

Field privateField = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getDeclaredField("privateString");//turning off access check with below method callprivateField.setAccessible(true);ConcreteClass objTest = new ConcreteClass(1);System.out.println(privateField.get(objTest)); // prints "private string"privateField.set(objTest, "private string updated");System.out.println(privateField.get(objTest)); //prints "private string updated"

Reflection for Methods

Using reflection we can get information about a method and we can invoke it also. In this section, we will learn different ways to get a method, invoke a method and accessing private methods.

Get Public Method

We can use getMethod() to get a public method of class, we need to pass the method name and parameter types of the method. If the method is not found in the class, reflection API looks for the method in superclass.

In below example, I am getting put() method of HashMap using reflection. The example also shows how to get the parameter types, method modifiers and return type of a method.

Method method = Class.forName("java.util.HashMap").getMethod("put", Object.class, Object.class);//get method parameter types, prints "[class java.lang.Object, class java.lang.Object]"System.out.println(Arrays.toString(method.getParameterTypes()));//get method return type, return "class java.lang.Object", class reference for voidSystem.out.println(method.getReturnType());//get method modifiersSystem.out.println(Modifier.toString(method.getModifiers())); //prints "public"

Invoking Public Method

We can use invoke() method of Method object to invoke a method, in below example code I am invoking put method on HashMap using reflection.

Method method = Class.forName("java.util.HashMap").getMethod("put", Object.class, Object.class);Map<String, String> hm = new HashMap<>();method.invoke(hm, "key", "value");System.out.println(hm); // prints {key=value}

If the method is static, we can pass NULL as object argument.

Invoking Private Methods

We can use getDeclaredMethod() to get the private method and then turn off the access check to invoke it, below example shows how we can invoke method3() of BaseClass that is static and have no parameters.

//invoking private methodMethod method = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.BaseClass").getDeclaredMethod("method3", null);method.setAccessible(true);method.invoke(null, null); //prints "Method3"

Reflection for Constructors

Reflection API provides methods to get the constructors of a class to analyze and we can create new instances of class by invoking the constructor. We have already learned how to get all the public constructors.

Get Public Constructor

We can use getConstructor() method on the class representation of object to get specific public constructor. Below example shows how to get the constructor of ConcreteClass defined above and the no-argument constructor of HashMap. It also shows how to get the array of parameter types for the constructor.

Constructor<?> constructor = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getConstructor(int.class);//getting constructor parametersSystem.out.println(Arrays.toString(constructor.getParameterTypes())); // prints "[int]"Constructor<?> hashMapConstructor = Class.forName("java.util.HashMap").getConstructor(null);System.out.println(Arrays.toString(hashMapConstructor.getParameterTypes())); // prints "[]"

Instantiate Object using Constructor

We can use newInstance() method on the constructor object to instantiate a new instance of the class. Since we use reflection when we don’t have the classes information at compile time, we can assign it to Object and then further use reflection to access it’s fields and invoke it’s methods.

Constructor<?> constructor = Class.forName("com.journaldev.reflection.ConcreteClass").getConstructor(int.class);//getting constructor parametersSystem.out.println(Arrays.toString(constructor.getParameterTypes())); // prints "[int]"Object myObj = constructor.newInstance(10);Method myObjMethod = myObj.getClass().getMethod("method1", null);myObjMethod.invoke(myObj, null); //prints "Method1 impl."Constructor<?> hashMapConstructor = Class.forName("java.util.HashMap").getConstructor(null);System.out.println(Arrays.toString(hashMapConstructor.getParameterTypes())); // prints "[]"HashMap<String,String> myMap = (HashMap<String,String>) hashMapConstructor.newInstance(null);

Reflection for Annotations

Annotations was introduced in Java 1.5 to provide metadata information of the class, methods or fields and now it’s heavily used in frameworks like Spring and Hibernate. Reflection API was also extended to provide support to analyze the annotations at runtime.

Using reflection API we can analyze annotations whose retention policy is Runtime. I have already written a detailed tutorial on annotations and how we can use reflection API to parse annotations, so I would suggest you to check out Java Annotations Tutorial.

Thats all for reflection in java, I hope you liked the tutorial and understood the importance of Java Reflection API.