#JAVA REFLECTION EXAMPLE PROGRAM SOFTWARE#
#JAVA REFLECTION EXAMPLE PROGRAM CODE#

#JAVA REFLECTION EXAMPLE PROGRAM SOFTWARE#

Reflection is often used as part of software testing, such as for the runtime creation/instantiation of mock objects. It also allows instantiation of new objects and invocation of methods. In object-oriented programming languages such as Java, reflection allows inspection of classes, interfaces, fields and methods at runtime without knowing the names of the interfaces, fields, methods at compile time.

#JAVA REFLECTION EXAMPLE PROGRAM CODE#

This is typically accomplished by dynamically assigning program code at runtime. A reflection-oriented program component can monitor the execution of an enclosure of code and can modify itself according to a desired goal of that enclosure. Reflection can be used for observing and modifying program execution at runtime. Languages without reflection such as C are required to use auxiliary compilers for tasks like Abstract Syntax Notation to produce code for serialization and bundling. For example, it assists languages such as Java to operate well in networks by enabling libraries for serialization, bundling and varying data formats. Reflection makes a language more suited to network-oriented code. Reflection helps programmers make generic software libraries to display data, process different formats of data, perform serialization or deserialization of data for communication, or do bundling and unbundling of data for containers or bursts of communication.Įffective use of reflection almost always requires a plan: A design framework, encoding description, object library, a map of a database or entity relations. īrian Cantwell Smith's 1982 doctoral dissertation introduced the notion of computational reflection in procedural programming languages and the notion of the meta-circular interpreter as a component of 3-Lisp. As the bulk of programming moved to higher-level compiled languages such as Algol, Cobol, Fortran, Pascal, and C, this reflective ability largely disappeared until new programming languages with reflection built into their type systems appeared. The earliest computers were programmed in their native assembly languages, which were inherently reflective, as these original architectures could be programmed by defining instructions as data and using self-modifying code. Not to be confused with Reflection (computer graphics).

Java reflection example program