Best way of invoking getter by reflection

I need to get the value of a field with a specific annotation, So with reflection I am able to get this Field Object. The problem is that this field will be always private though I know in advance it will always have a getter method. I know that I can use setAccesible(true) and get its value (when there is no PermissionManager), though I prefer to invoke its getter method.

I know that I could look for the method by looking for "get+fieldName" (though I know for example for boolean fields are sometimes named as "is+fieldName").

I wonder if there is a better way to invoke this getter (many frameworks use getters/setters to access the attributes so maybe they do in another way).

Thanks

I think this should point you towards the right direction:

import java.beans.*

for (PropertyDescriptor pd : Introspector.getBeanInfo(Foo.class).getPropertyDescriptors()) {
  if (pd.getReadMethod() != null && !"class".equals(pd.getName()))
    System.out.println(pd.getReadMethod().invoke(foo));
}

Note that you could create BeanInfo or PropertyDescriptor instances yourself, i.e. without using Introspector. However, Introspector does some caching internally which is normally a Good Thing (tm). If you're happy without a cache, you can even go for

// TODO check for non-existing readMethod
Object value = new PropertyDescriptor("name", Person.class).getReadMethod().invoke(person);

However, there are a lot of libraries that extend and simplify the java.beans API. Commons BeanUtils is a well known example. There, you'd simply do:

Object value = PropertyUtils.getProperty(person, "name");

BeanUtils comes with other handy stuff. i.e. on-the-fly value conversion (object to string, string to object) to simplify setting properties from user input.

You can use Reflections framework for this

import static org.reflections.ReflectionUtils.*;
Set<Method> getters = ReflectionUtils.getAllMethods(someClass,
      withModifier(Modifier.PUBLIC), withPrefix("get"), withAnnotation(annotation));

The naming convention is part of the well-established JavaBeans specification and is supported by the classes in the java.beans package.

You can invoke reflections and also, set order of sequence for getter for values through annotations

public class Student {

    private String grade;

    private String name;

    private String id;

    private String gender;

    private Method[] methods;

    @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
    public @interface Order {
        int value();
    }

    /**
     * Sort methods as per Order Annotations
     * 
     * @return
     */
    private void sortMethods() {

        methods = Student.class.getMethods();

        Arrays.sort(methods, new Comparator<Method>() {
            public int compare(Method o1, Method o2) {
                Order or1 = o1.getAnnotation(Order.class);
                Order or2 = o2.getAnnotation(Order.class);
                if (or1 != null && or2 != null) {
                    return or1.value() - or2.value();
                }
                else if (or1 != null && or2 == null) {
                    return -1;
                }
                else if (or1 == null && or2 != null) {
                    return 1;
                }
                return o1.getName().compareTo(o2.getName());
            }
        });
    }

    /**
     * Read Elements
     * 
     * @return
     */
    public void readElements() {
        int pos = 0;
        /**
         * Sort Methods
         */
        if (methods == null) {
            sortMethods();
        }
        for (Method method : methods) {
            String name = method.getName();
            if (name.startsWith("get") && !name.equalsIgnoreCase("getClass")) {
                pos++;
                String value = "";
                try {
                    value = (String) method.invoke(this);
                }
                catch (IllegalAccessException | IllegalArgumentException | InvocationTargetException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
                System.out.println(name + " Pos: " + pos + " Value: " + value);
            }
        }
    }

    // /////////////////////// Getter and Setter Methods

    /**
     * @param grade
     * @param name
     * @param id
     * @param gender
     */
    public Student(String grade, String name, String id, String gender) {
        super();
        this.grade = grade;
        this.name = name;
        this.id = id;
        this.gender = gender;
    }

    /**
     * @return the grade
     */
    @Order(value = 4)
    public String getGrade() {
        return grade;
    }

    /**
     * @param grade the grade to set
     */
    public void setGrade(String grade) {
        this.grade = grade;
    }

    /**
     * @return the name
     */
    @Order(value = 2)
    public String getName() {
        return name;
    }

    /**
     * @param name the name to set
     */
    public void setName(String name) {
        this.name = name;
    }

    /**
     * @return the id
     */
    @Order(value = 1)
    public String getId() {
        return id;
    }

    /**
     * @param id the id to set
     */
    public void setId(String id) {
        this.id = id;
    }

    /**
     * @return the gender
     */
    @Order(value = 3)
    public String getGender() {
        return gender;
    }

    /**
     * @param gender the gender to set
     */
    public void setGender(String gender) {
        this.gender = gender;
    }

    /**
     * Main
     * 
     * @param args
     * @throws IOException
     * @throws SQLException
     * @throws InvocationTargetException
     * @throws IllegalArgumentException
     * @throws IllegalAccessException
     */
    public static void main(String args[]) throws IOException, SQLException, IllegalAccessException,
            IllegalArgumentException, InvocationTargetException {
        Student student = new Student("A", "Anand", "001", "Male");
        student.readElements();
    }
  }

Output when sorted

getId Pos: 1 Value: 001
getName Pos: 2 Value: Anand
getGender Pos: 3 Value: Male
getGrade Pos: 4 Value: A