How to get the fields in an Object via reflection?

Question

I have an object (basically a VO) in Java and I don't know its type.
I need to get values which are not null in that object.

How can this be done?

Answer 1

You can use Class#getDeclaredFields() to get all declared fields of the class. You can use Field#get() to get the value.

In short:

Object someObject = getItSomehow();
for (Field field : someObject.getClass().getDeclaredFields()) {
    field.setAccessible(true); // You might want to set modifier to public first.
    Object value = field.get(someObject); 
    if (value != null) {
        System.out.println(field.getName() + "=" + value);
    }
}

To learn more about reflection, check the Sun tutorial on the subject.

---

That said, the fields does not necessarily all represent properties of a VO. You would rather like to determine the public methods starting with get or is and then invoke it to grab the real property values.

for (Method method : someObject.getClass().getDeclaredMethods()) {
    if (Modifier.isPublic(method.getModifiers())
        && method.getParameterTypes().length == 0
        && method.getReturnType() != void.class
        && (method.getName().startsWith("get") || method.getName().startsWith("is"))
    ) {
        Object value = method.invoke(someObject);
        if (value != null) {
            System.out.println(method.getName() + "=" + value);
        }
    }
}

---

That in turn said, there may be more elegant ways to solve your actual problem. If you elaborate a bit more about the functional requirement for which you think that this is the right solution, then we may be able to suggest the right solution. There are many, many tools available to massage javabeans.

Answer 2

I've an object (basically a VO) in Java and I don't know its type. I need to get values which are not null in that object.

Maybe you don't necessary need reflection for that -- here is a plain OO design that might solve your problem:

1. Add an interface Validation which expose a method validate which checks the fields and return whatever is appropriate.
2. Implement the interface and the method for all VO.
3. When you get a VO, even if it's concrete type is unknown, you can typecast it to Validation and check that easily.

I guess that you need the field that are null to display an error message in a generic way, so that should be enough. Let me know if this doesn't work for you for some reason.

Answer 3

Here's a quick and dirty method that does what you want in a generic way. You'll need to add exception handling and you'll probably want to cache the BeanInfo types in a weakhashmap.

public Map<String, Object> getNonNullProperties(final Object thingy) {
    final Map<String, Object> nonNullProperties = new TreeMap<String, Object>();
    try {
        final BeanInfo beanInfo = Introspector.getBeanInfo(thingy
                .getClass());
        for (final PropertyDescriptor descriptor : beanInfo
                .getPropertyDescriptors()) {
            try {
                final Object propertyValue = descriptor.getReadMethod()
                        .invoke(thingy);
                if (propertyValue != null) {
                    nonNullProperties.put(descriptor.getName(),
                            propertyValue);
                }
            } catch (final IllegalArgumentException e) {
                // handle this please
            } catch (final IllegalAccessException e) {
                // and this also
            } catch (final InvocationTargetException e) {
                // and this, too
            }
        }
    } catch (final IntrospectionException e) {
        // do something sensible here
    }
    return nonNullProperties;
}

See these references:

• BeanInfo (JavaDoc)
• Introspector.getBeanInfo(class) (JavaDoc)
• Introspection (Sun Java Tutorial)