Overview of reflection
Reflection, a fundamental feature of the Java programming language, bestows upon developers the ability to inspect and manipulate the structure, behavior, and metadata of classes and objects at runtime. This dynamic capability might open a Pandora’s box of possibilities, allowing programmers to transcend the confines of static code and respond to the evolving needs of their applications. Why is reflection so crucial to Java development?
Reflection in Java finds practical use in specialized scenarios, such as framework and library development, empowering developers to create flexible and extensible code. It plays a pivotal role in dependency injection (DI) containers, object-relational mapping (ORM) frameworks, and testing frameworks, enabling dynamic class instantiation and configuration. Reflection is also essential in serialization and deserialization libraries, GUI development tools, and Java’s core libraries, contributing to the dynamic loading...