There are two reflective methods for creating instances of classes: java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance()
and Class.newInstance()
. The former is preferred and is thus used in these examples because:html
Class.newInstance()
can only invoke the zero-argument constructor, while Constructor.newInstance()
may invoke any constructor, regardless of the number of parameters.Class.newInstance()
throws any exception thrown by the constructor, regardless of whether it is checked or unchecked. Constructor.newInstance()
always wraps the thrown exception with an InvocationTargetException
.Class.newInstance()
requires that the constructor be visible; Constructor.newInstance()
may invoke private
constructors under certain circumstances.Sometimes it may be desirable to retrieve internal state from an object which is only set after construction. Consider a scenario where it is necessary to obtain the internal character set used by java.io.Console
. (The Console
character set is stored in an private field and is not necessarily the same as the Java virtual machine default character set returned by java.nio.charset.Charset.defaultCharset()
). The
example shows how this might be achieved:javaConsoleCharset
import java.io.Console; import java.nio.charset.Charset; import java.lang.reflect.Constructor; import java.lang.reflect.Field; import java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException; import static java.lang.System.out; public class ConsoleCharset { public static void main(String... args) { Constructor[] ctors = Console.class.getDeclaredConstructors(); Constructor ctor = null; for (int i = 0; i < ctors.length; i++) { ctor = ctors[i]; if (ctor.getGenericParameterTypes().length == 0) break; } try { ctor.setAccessible(true); Console c = (Console)ctor.newInstance(); Field f = c.getClass().getDeclaredField("cs"); f.setAccessible(true); out.format("Console charset : %s%n", f.get(c)); out.format("Charset.defaultCharset(): %s%n", Charset.defaultCharset()); // production code should handle these exceptions more gracefully } catch (InstantiationException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } catch (InvocationTargetException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } catch (IllegalAccessException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } catch (NoSuchFieldException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } } }
Note: express
Class.newInstance()
will only succeed if the constructor is has zero arguments and is already accessible. Otherwise, it is necessary to useConstructor.newInstance()
as in the above example.windows
Example output for a UNIX system:api
$ java ConsoleCharset Console charset : ISO-8859-1 Charset.defaultCharset() : ISO-8859-1
Example output for a Windows system:oracle
C:\> java ConsoleCharset Console charset : IBM437 Charset.defaultCharset() : windows-1252
Another common application of Constructor.newInstance()
is to invoke constructors which take arguments. The
example finds a specific single-argument constructor and invokes it:appRestoreAliases
import java.lang.reflect.Constructor; import java.lang.reflect.Field; import java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException; import java.util.HashMap; import java.util.Map; import java.util.Set; import static java.lang.System.out; class EmailAliases { private Set<String> aliases; private EmailAliases(HashMap<String, String> h) { aliases = h.keySet(); } public void printKeys() { out.format("Mail keys:%n"); for (String k : aliases) out.format(" %s%n", k); } } public class RestoreAliases { private static Map<String, String> defaultAliases = new HashMap<String, String>(); static { defaultAliases.put("Duke", "duke@i-love-java"); defaultAliases.put("Fang", "fang@evil-jealous-twin"); } public static void main(String... args) { try { Constructor ctor = EmailAliases.class.getDeclaredConstructor(HashMap.class); ctor.setAccessible(true); EmailAliases email = (EmailAliases)ctor.newInstance(defaultAliases); email.printKeys(); // production code should handle these exceptions more gracefully } catch (InstantiationException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } catch (IllegalAccessException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } catch (InvocationTargetException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } catch (NoSuchMethodException x) { x.printStackTrace(); } } }
This example uses Class.getDeclaredConstructor()
to find the constructor with a single argument of type java.util.HashMap
. Note that it is sufficient to passHashMap.class
since the parameter to any get*Constructor()
method requires a class only for type purposes. Due to type erasure, the following expression evaluates to true
:less
HashMap.class == defaultAliases.getClass()
The example then creates a new instance of the class using this constructor with Constructor.newInstance()
.ide
$ java RestoreAliases Mail keys: Duke Fang