20.3

java.lang.Class

THE PACKAGE JAVA.LANG

20.3 The Class

java.lang.Class

Instances of the class

Class

 represent classes and interfaces in a way that can be

manipulated by a running Java program. Every array also belongs to a class repre 

sented by a

Class

 object that is shared among all arrays with the same element

type and number of dimensions.

There is no public constructor for the class

Class

. The Java Virtual Machine

automatically constructs

Class

 objects as classes are loaded; such objects cannot

be created by user programs.

public final class Class {

public String toString();

public String getName();

public boolean isInterface();

public Class getSuperclass();

public Class[] getInterfaces();

public Object newInstance()

throws InstantiationException, IllegalAccessException;

public ClassLoader getClassLoader();

public static Class forName(String className)

throws ClassNotFoundException;

}

20.3.1

public String toString()

If this

Class

 object represents a class (which may be a declared class or an array

class), a string is returned consisting of the word

class

, a space, and the name of

the class as returned by the

getName

 method ( 20.3.2). If this

Class

 object repre 

sents an interface, a string is returned consisting of the word

interface

, a space,

and the name of the interface as returned by the

getName

 method.

In other words, this method returns a string equal to the value of:

(isInterface() ? "interface " : "class ") + getName()

Overrides the

toString

 method of

Object

 ( 20.1.2).

20.3.2

public String getName()

The fully qualified name of the class or interface represented by this

Class

 object

is returned as a

String

. For example:

new Object().getClass().getName()

returns

"java.lang.Object"

.

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