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Fields
A
field is a class, interface, or enum with an associated value.
Methods in the
java.lang.reflect.Field
class can retrieve information about the field, such as its name, type,
modifiers, and annotations. (The section
Examining Class Modifiers and Types
in the
Classes
lesson describes how to retrieve annotations.) There are also methods
which enable dynamic access and modification of the value of the
field. These tasks are covered in the following sections:
When writing an application such as a class browser, it might be useful to
find out which fields belong to a particular class. A class's fields are
identified by invoking
Class.getFields(). The
getFields()
method returns an array
of
Field
objects containing one object per accessible public field.
A public field is accessible if it is a member of either:
- this class
- a superclass of this class
- an interface implemented by this class
- an interface extended from an interface implemented by this class
A field may be a class (instance) field, such as
java.io.Reader.lock
, a static field, such as
java.lang.Integer.MAX_VALUE
, or an enum constant, such as
java.lang.Thread.State.WAITING.
