REFLECTIONS ON REFLECTION

hugo sereno ferreira . faculty of engineering . university of porto

REFLECTION
ri ek sh n

... the throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it; an idea about something; the conceptual operation of inverting a system or event with respect to a plane.
Oxford Dictionary

... an innite self-reection ...

SELF-REFERENTIAL

[xkcd #688]

SELF-AWARENESS

Here I am walking down the street in the rain... Since Im starting to get drenched, I should open my umbrella!

BACK TO COMPUTERS

The previous thought fragment reveals a self-awareness of behavior and state, one that leads to a change in that selfsame behavior and state. It would be desirable for computations to avail themselves of these reective capabilities, examining themselves in order to make use of meta-level information in decisions about what to do next.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

[image inspired in Hofstadters Gdel Escher Bach]

REFLECTION
ri ek sh n

... the process by which a computer program can observe, or introspect, and modify, or intersect, its own structure and behavior on-the-y.
Wikipedia

One should be able (during execution) to...

Introspect,

e.g. query for a list of dened classes. Intersect, e.g. create a new class.

REIFICATION
rf k sh n

... the process of making (something abstract) more concrete or real.

Oxford Dictionary

Reication can be...

Structural, classes

and methods become objects. Behavioral, computational mechanisms, e.g. call stack.

META-*
met str

... denoting something of a higher or second-order kind; referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre; self-referential.
Oxford Dictionary

Meta-information (or meta-data) is information on the information held within a data set; a programs metainformation is information about the program itself.
[this slide is a blatant oversimplication]

IN SUMMARY...
Meta-Level

Introspection Reection

Intersection

Reication

Operational Level

META-PROGRAMMING
met pr grami ng

... the writing of computer programs that write or manipulate other programs, or themselves.
Wikipedia

A program that outputs itself (quine):

C

main() { char *s="main() { char *s=%c%s%c; printf(s,34,s, 34); }"; printf(s,34,s,34); }

Y COMBINATOR
Quines are similar to xed-point combinators in -calculus:
Y g = (f . (x . f (x x)) (x . f (x x))) g = (x . g (x x)) (x . g (x x)) = (y . g (y y)) (x . g (x x)) = g ((x . g (x x)) (x . g (x x))) = g (Y g) by denition of Y by -reduction of f by -conversion by -reduction of y by second equality

Just j/k a bit... You dont need to know this :-)

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE REAL WORLD?

PRAGMATICS

REFLECTING IN JAVA
Java stores metadata in classes (reication): ... for a class ... for a constructor ... for a eld ... for a method
java.lang.Class java.lang.reflect.Constructor java.lang.reflect.Field java.lang.reflect.Method

It is also possible to store user-dened metadata by decorating structural elements (classes, methods, elds...) with @annotations.

OBTAINING A CLASS
There are two ways to access a class: Starting from an object and using Searching with
forName()
JAVA

getClass()

Board b = new Board(); Class<?> bClass = b.getClass(); assertEquals("Board", bClass.getName()); Class<?> bClass2 = Class.forName("Board"); assertSame(bClass2, bClass);

INTROSPECTION
JAVA

Class<?> c = Class.forName("Object"); Method ms[] = c.getDeclaredMethods(); for (Method m : ms) ! System.out.println(m.toString());

protected void java.lang.Object.finalize() throws java.lang.Throwable public final void java.lang.Object.wait() throws java.lang.InterruptedException public final native void java.lang.Object.wait(long) throws java.lang.InterruptedException public final void java.lang.Object.wait(long,int) throws java.lang.InterruptedException public boolean java.lang.Object.equals(java.lang.Object) public boolean java.lang.Object.equals(java.lang.Object) public java.lang.String java.lang.Object.toString() public native int java.lang.Object.hashCode() public final native java.lang.Class java.lang.Object.getClass() protected native java.lang.Object java.lang.Object.clone() throws CloneNotSupportedException private static native void java.lang.Object.registerNatives() public final native void java.lang.Object.notify() public final native void java.lang.Object.notifyAll()

OUTPUT

CREATING AN OBJECT
The constructor can be called using
// without reflection new Board().hello(); // with reflection Class<?> bClass = Class.forName("Board"); Board x = (Board) bClass.newInstance(); bClass.getMethod("hello").invoke(x);

newInstance()
JAVA

XML-CONFIGURATION
<configuration> <plugins> <load name=WriteToConsole /> <load name=TweetIt /> <plugins> </configuration>
XML

JAVA

Vector<Plugin> plugins = new Vector<Plugin>(); Vector<String> names = new Vector<String>(); // Now load XML into names vector, and then... for (String x : names) { ! plugins.add((Plugin) Class.forName(x).newInstance());!

RESIZING AN ARRAY
Thought arrays were xed in size? Think again...
JAVA

public Object growArray(Object array, int size) { Class type = array.getClass().getComponentType(); Object grown = Array.newInstance(type, size); System.arraycopy(array, 0, grown, 0, Math.min(Array.getLength(array), size)); return grown; }

The getComponentType() method returns the array contents type: for int[] it would return int.

MISBEHAVING
How to access a eld that has been marked as private?
if (!Modifier.isPublic(field.getModifiers())) ! field.setAccessible(true); Object obj = field.get(obj);
JAVA

And heres the rst example of negative side-effects of reection, security. The next is...

PERFORMANCE
Field access times using get() and set() in ms log scale:
Direct

Reference

Reflection 1 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000

[source http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/j-dyn0603/]

REFLECTIVE TOWER
M3

Class

instanceOf M2

instanceOf

instanceOf classier

Attribute

Class

Instance

instanceOf M1

instanceOf snapshot

instanceOf

Video +title: string

:aVideo title = "Matrix"

instanceOf M0

Matrix

The meta-class of class class is the meta-class class*

* or classes meta-classes are classes.

APPLICATIONS
There are many uses to reection, including: Plugins to extend functionalities Auto-completion in IDE Perform actions based on Annotations Tie components together Bytecode manipulation Runtime code generation Evaluate Java expressions interactively Ant Eclipse JUnit Spring AOP Proxies, JSP Eclipse

ALWAYS REMEMBER

... a fool with a tool is still a fool.

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