Finding methods at runtime

In my Java Reflection article, I have shown you how to retrieve a Method Object using Class.getMethod(methodName, parameterTypes). Class Object has other methods too for introspecting about methods. In this article, I will show you an example for each of those methods.

Class.getMethods() Example

A class may have private, protected, default and public methods. getMethods returns all of the public methods inherited or declared in the form of an array.

In the example I am going to show, I have class A extending class B. Both classes implement their own interface.

A:

package javarticles.javareflection;

public class A extends B implements IA {
    public void doAImpl(int a, int b) {
    }
    
    private void doAPrivate() {        
    }

    @Override
    public void doAInterface() {  
    }
    
    protected void doAProtected() {        
    }
    
    void doAPackage() {        
    }
}

B:

package javarticles.javareflection;

public class B implements IB {
    public void doBImpl(int a, int b) {
    }
    
    private void doBPrivate() {        
    }

    @Override
    public void doBInterface() {  
    }
    
    protected void doBProtected() {        
    }
    
    void doBPackage() {        
    }
}

In the below example, we first load the class and then call getMethods on it. We traverse through each of the returned Method object and print the class containing the method and the method name.

FindMethodsExample:

package javarticles.javareflection;

import java.lang.reflect.Method;

public class FindMethodsExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {        
        Class<?> classA = Class.forName("javarticles.javareflection.A");  
        System.out.println("getMethods:");
        Method[] allMethodsInA = classA.getMethods();
        for (Method method : allMethodsInA) {
            System.out.println(method.getDeclaringClass() + "." + method.getName());
        }
    }
}

Output:

class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAImpl
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAInterface
class javarticles.javareflection.B.doBImpl
class javarticles.javareflection.B.doBInterface
class java.lang.Object.wait
class java.lang.Object.wait
class java.lang.Object.wait
class java.lang.Object.equals
class java.lang.Object.toString
class java.lang.Object.hashCode
class java.lang.Object.getClass
class java.lang.Object.notify
class java.lang.Object.notifyAll

In the output we can see public methods of class A's and the public methods of its inherited class B's.
If you notice the output also has methods from Object class, like, wait, equals, toString etc. This is obvious as Object is the root class in the inheritance hierarchy.

Class.getDeclaredMethods() Example

If you are interested only in the methods declared by the target class and not bothered about the inherited methods, you need to call getDeclaredMethods.
It will return all the methods declared by the target class including private, protected and default scoped.

FindDeclaredMethodsExample:

package javarticles.javareflection;

import java.lang.reflect.Method;

public class FindDeclaredMethodsExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        
        // Find declared methods
        Class<?> classA = Class.forName("javarticles.javareflection.A");
        System.out.println("getDeclaredMethods:");
        Method[] methodsInA = classA.getDeclaredMethods();
        for (Method method : methodsInA) {
            System.out.println(method.getDeclaringClass() + "." + method.getName());
        }               
    }
}

Output:

getDeclaredMethods:
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAImpl
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAPrivate
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAInterface
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAProtected
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAPackage

How to find all the declared methods (target as well as inherited)

Since getDeclaredMethods only returns us the methods of the target class and not the inherited classes, we need to call getDeclaredMethods on each of the super class. Class.getSuperclass() will return us the super class.

In the below example, we traverse through each super class and then call getDeclaredMethods on the obtained class.
If it is interface, we only need to call getMethods as interface will only have public methods.

FindAllDeclaredMethodsExample:

package javarticles.javareflection;

import java.lang.reflect.Method;

public class FindAllDeclaredMethodsExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        // Find declared methods
        Class<?> classA = Class.forName("javarticles.javareflection.A");
        System.out.println("All declared methods:");
        Class<?> clazz = classA;
        while (clazz != null) {
            Method[] methods = (clazz.isInterface() ? clazz
                    .getMethods() : clazz.getDeclaredMethods());
            for (Method method : methods) {
                System.out.println(method.getDeclaringClass() + "." + method.getName());
            }
            clazz = clazz.getSuperclass();
        }
    }
}

Output:

All declared methods:
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAImpl
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAPrivate
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAInterface
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAProtected
class javarticles.javareflection.A.doAPackage
class javarticles.javareflection.B.doBImpl
class javarticles.javareflection.B.doBPrivate
class javarticles.javareflection.B.doBInterface
class javarticles.javareflection.B.doBProtected
class javarticles.javareflection.B.doBPackage
class java.lang.Object.finalize
class java.lang.Object.wait
class java.lang.Object.wait
class java.lang.Object.wait
class java.lang.Object.equals
class java.lang.Object.toString
class java.lang.Object.hashCode
class java.lang.Object.getClass
class java.lang.Object.clone
class java.lang.Object.notify
class java.lang.Object.notifyAll
class java.lang.Object.registerNatives

Download Source Code

In this article, I have shown you the different flavors of retrieving Method object.
You can download the source code here: javareflection.zip