CSC/ECE 517 Fall 2009/wiki2 5 jdf

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Reflection is widely used in programming languages. This topic is not about reflection per se, but about reflection APIs--the facilities that particular languages provide for doing reflection. Is reflection "built in" to some o-o languages, while others require external libraries to perform reflection? What built-in and library functions are provided? Which APIs are easiest to use and why?

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Reflection APIs

Introduction

Reflection is a feature offered by many modern programming languages. Reflection provides programmers with the ability to write code that determines information about a set of code during run time. The information that is acquired through reflection can be used to develop very sophisticated program features. Programs can be written to adapt based on the characteristics of the code itself. The information that can be obtained via reflection includes elements such as:

• The class types of objects that are present in the running program
• The class hierarchy of an object or set of objects
• The attributes and methods of objects
• Details of the method calls supported by objects [1]

Reflection is present in many programming languages and its use is particularly prevalent in object oriented languages, such as Java and Ruby. The level of implementation and ease of use varies among languages. The objective of this article is to provide an overview of the different Application Programming Interfaces or APIs that exist in various Object Oriented Languages to provide reflection functionality.

Languages that Provide a Reflection API

Among the languages that provide Reflection APIs we count the following:

• Ruby
• Java
• C#
• VB.NET
• Smalltalk-80

Reflection in Ruby

Reflection is built into Ruby, it is a standard feature of the language. Objects in Ruby support reflection by default, hence it is not necessary to use any external or additional libraries. In essence, the programmer does not need to do anything special to star using reflection, it is a native part of the language [1, 2].

The following Ruby code will display the class type of a variable:

mystr = "Hello World!"

mystr.class

The following code displays all the methods that are exposed by the class:

mystr.methods

Reflection in Java

Reflection in Java is achived by making method calls on a Class object. Before using reflection on an object, first it is necessary to map it to an instance of Class. It is important to note that this method only works for types that are derived from Object, not all types in Java are an object, e.g. boolean.

The following code shows how to obtain the Class from a string object:

Class myclass = "Hello World!".getClass();

We can use the myclass object to retrieve the name of the class, in this case String:

myclass.getName();

To map a non-object Java type, such as the primitive type boolean to a Class, the following syntax must be used:

boolean recordExists;

Class myclass = recordExists.class;

To retrieve the set of methods that are supported by a given class, the following syntax is used:

myclass.getMethods();

Other Considerations

Reflection is a very powerful programming feature, usually reserved for more experienced programmers. The use of reflection must be done keeping in mind that the advantages achieved from discovering details about the code during run time come at a price[3]. The following must be considered:

• Reflection incurs heavy overhead, i.e. code that uses reflection cannot be optimized by the compiler in the same way that standard code is. Code that relies on reflection should be expected to run slower.

• Reflection may not work in the deployed environment due to security constraints.

• Code that uses reflection may result in undesired or unexpected side effects, for instance changes to private variables that were never intended to be exposed.

Resources

Ruby Programming Language

Java

The Java Tutorials

.NET Framework

References

[1] Thomas, D., Fowler C. and Hunt A. Programming Ruby, The Pragmatic Programmer's Guide. 2nd Edition. The Pragmatic Bookshelf.

[2] Help and documentation for the Ruby programming language, RUBY-DOC.ORG

[3] Trail: The Reflection API (The Java Tutorials) [1]

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CSC 517 Fall 2009

Wiki 2 Assignment

Author: Newwolf