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/* * Copyright (c) 1998, 2021, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. * * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as * published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. * * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that * accompanied this code). * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. * * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any * questions. */ /** * Provides classes and interfaces for obtaining reflective information about * classes and objects. Reflection allows programmatic access to information * about the fields, methods, and constructors of loaded classes, and the use * of reflected fields, methods, and constructors to operate on their underlying * counterparts, within encapsulation and security restrictions. * * Classes in this package, along with {@code java.lang.Class} * accommodate applications such as debuggers, interpreters, object * inspectors, class browsers, and services such as Object * Serialization and JavaBeans that need access to either the public * members of a target object (based on its runtime class) or the * members declared by a given class. * * {@link AccessibleObject} allows suppression of access checks if * the necessary {@link ReflectPermission} is available. * * {@link Array} provides static methods to dynamically create and * access arrays. * * Java programming language and JVM modeling in core reflection * * The components of core reflection, which include types in this * package as well as {@link java.lang.Class Class}, {@link * java.lang.Package Package}, and {@link java.lang.Module Module}, * fundamentally present a JVM model of the entities in question * rather than a Java programming language model. A Java compiler, * such as {@code javac}, translates Java source code into executable * output that can be run on a JVM, primarily {@code class} * files. Compilers for source languages other than Java can and do * target the JVM as well. * * The translation process, including from Java language sources, * to executable output for the JVM is not a one-to-one * mapping. Structures present in the source language may have no * representation in the output and structures not present in * the source language may be present in the output. The latter are * called synthetic structures. Synthetic structures can * include {@linkplain Method#isSynthetic() methods}, {@linkplain * Field#isSynthetic() fields}, {@linkplain Parameter#isSynthetic() * parameters}, {@linkplain Class#isSynthetic() classes and * interfaces}. One particular kind of synthetic method is a * {@linkplain Method#isBridge() bridge method}. It is possible a * synthetic structure may not be marked as such. In particular, not * all {@code class} file versions support marking a parameter as * synthetic. A source language compiler generally has multiple ways * to translate a source program into a {@code class} file * representation. The translation may also depend on the version of * the {@code class} file format being targeted as different {@code * class} file versions have different capabilities and features. In * some cases the modifiers present in the {@code class} file * representation may differ from the modifiers on the originating * element in the source language, including {@link Modifier#FINAL * final} on a {@linkplain Parameter#getModifiers() parameter} and * {@code protected}, {@code private}, and {@code static} on * {@linkplain java.lang.Class#getModifiers() classes and interfaces}. * *

Besides differences in structural representation between the * source language and the JVM representation, core reflection also * exposes runtime specific information. For example, the {@linkplain * java.lang.Class#getClassLoader() class loaders} and {@linkplain * java.lang.Class#getProtectionDomain() protection domains} of a * {@code Class} are runtime concepts without a direct analogue in * source code. * * @jls 13.1 The Form of a Binary * @jvms 1.2 The Java Virtual Machine * @jvms 4.7.8 The Synthetic Attribute * @jvms 5.3.1 Loading Using the Bootstrap Class Loader * @jvms 5.3.2 Loading Using a User-defined Class Loader * @since 1.1 * @revised 9 */ package java.lang.reflect;