Java Reflection in Action

297 Pages·2004·1.59 MB·English

Ira R. Forman
Nate Forman
M A N N I N G
PRAISE FOR ...
Java Reflection in Action
Java Reflection in Action is unique in presenting a clear account of all
the cool things you can do with reflection, and at the same time pro-
viding the sound conceptual basis that developers need to create
advanced applications. The book includes careful explanations of
sometimes perplexing programming techniques along with enough
background to understand how to extend and vary them. This book
overcomes reflection’s reputation as a mysterious and esoteric philo-
sophical pursuit, or as a set of messy error-prone coding tricks.
As reflection becomes increasingly common and useful in all sorts
of applications, it is great to finally have a book that features disci-
plined yet still creative and fun software engineering practices based
on reflection. Even occasional users will immediately adopt the
book’s patterns and idioms to solve common problems. Many of the
examples can be directly adapted for customized solutions in diverse
areas such as XML processing, automated software testing, and pro-
gram analysis tools. Readers will also find underlying rationales for
code performing introspection, proxies, class loading, and so on,
that are often seen but not often explained well in everyday Java pro-
grams. And even experts will find new ideas and well-thought out
advice for using some of the more subtle aspects of reflection.
—Prof. Doug Lea, SUNY Oswego,
author of Concurrent Programming in Java
Java has brought reflection to the programming masses, but they're
still struggling with it. The Formans turn struggle into adventure as
they guide you through one compelling example after another, each
one illustrating reflection’s power while avoiding its pitfalls.
—Dr. John Vlissides, IBM
—coauthor of Design Patterns

Java Reflection
in Action
IRA R. FORMAN
NATE FORMAN
MANNING
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(74° w. long.)
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Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 – VHG – 07 06 05 04
To Janet/Mom
This project wouldn’t have happened
without your love and support.

contents
preface xiii
acknowledgments xv
about this book xvii
about the title xx
about the cover illustration xxi
1 A few basics 1
1.1 Reflection’s value proposition 3
1.2 Enter George the programmer 4
Choosing reflection 5 ■ Programming a reflective solution 6
1.3 Examining running programs 8
1.4 Finding a method at runtime 10
1.5 Representing types with class objects 12
Representing primitive types 13 ■ Representing interfaces 13
Representing array types 14
1.6 Understanding method objects 14
Using dynamic invocation 15 ■ Using primitives with dynamic
invocation 16 ■ Avoiding invocation pitfalls 17
1.7 Diagramming for reflection 19
vii
viii CONTENTS
1.8 Navigating the inheritance hierarchy 20
Introspecting the inheritance hierarchy 22 ■ Exposing some
surprises 23 ■ Another reflective circularity 24
1.9 Summary 26
2 Accessing fields reflectively 27
2.1 Serializing objects 28
Serializing to XML 29 ■ Choosing reflection 30
Designing serialization with reflection 30
2.2 Finding fields at runtime 31
2.3 Understanding field objects 33
2.4 Getting and setting field values 34
2.5 Examining modifiers 35
Introducing Member 36 ■ Interface introspection pitfall 37
Introspecting for instance variables 37
2.6 Accessing nonpublic members 38
2.7 Working with arrays 40
2.8 Serialization: putting it all together 41
Serializing each component 43 ■ Serializing instance variables 43
2.9 Using reflective serialization 45
2.10 Summary 48
3 Dynamic loading and reflective construction 49
3.1 George’s deployment problem 50
Designing with patterns 51 ■ Programming a reflective solution 52
Enhancing the factory method with reflection 54 ■ Combining
benefits of delegation and reflection 54
3.2 Loading classes dynamically 55
Basics of forName 55 ■ Getting array classes 56
Primitives and forName 56
3.3 Constructing objects reflectively 57
Reflective construction basics 57 ■ Using constructor objects 57
Constructing arrays reflectively 59
3.4 Designing for dynamic loading 60
Disadvantages of reflective construction with arguments 61
Initializing through an interface 62
CONTENTS ix
3.5 Implementing deserialization 63
Initiating deserialization 64 ■ Constructing the instances 65
Restoring the object structure 66
3.6 George’s serialization: limitations 69
No interaction with readObject or writeObject 69 ■ No handling of
final instance variables 70 ■ Only no-argument constructors 70
No handling of illegal XML characters 70 ■ Performance 71
3.7 Summary 71
4 Using Java’s dynamic proxy 73
4.1 Working with proxies 74
4.2 George’s tracing problem 76
4.3 Exploring Proxy 77
Understanding invocation handlers 79
Handling the methods of Object 80
4.4 Implementing a tracing proxy 81
4.5 A note on factories 84
4.6 Chaining proxies 86
Structuring invocation handlers for chaining 86 ■ Implementing
a synchronized proxy 88 ■ Chaining the two proxies 89
4.7 Stubbing interfaces for unit testing 90
Examining stubs 90 ■ Design for stubbing with Proxy 91
Implementation of stubbing with Proxy 93
4.8 Generating SOAP remote proxies 99
4.9 Pitfalls of using Proxy 103
4.10 Summary 105
5 Call stack introspection 107
5.1 George’s logging problem 108
5.2 Performing call stack introspection 111
5.3 Logging with call stack introspection 112
5.4 Pitfalls 114
5.5 Class invariant checking 115
5.6 Summary 120