Class.getMethods()

Question

I have the following code:import java.io.*;
import java.lang.reflect.*;
public class Reflection
   public static void main(String[] args)
      Object object = null;
      System.out.print("Enter the name of the class: ");
      BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
      try
         String className = br.readLine();
         object = Class.forName(className).newInstance();
         showMethods(object);
      catch (Exception e) { }
   public static void showMethods(Object passedObject)
      Method[] methods = passedObject.getClass().getMethods();
      for (int x = 0 ; x < methods.length ; x++)
         System.out.println(methods[x]);
      System.out.print("\n" + passedObject.getClass().getName());
      System.out.println(" has access to " + methods.length + " methods.\n");
}If I enter "java.util.Vector" or "javax.swing.JFrame", I get the correct and expected response.
If I enter "java.math.BigDecimal" or "java.awt.event.ActionEvent", I get nothing.
Can anyone explain what I'm missing?
Thanx to one and all.

Answer 1

I'm beginning to think that, contrary to what the
docs say, there is no way to create and use an object
whose type is not known until runtime:Not entirely true.
You can find out what the available c'tors are, using reflection. You can pick one, give it some data, and call it. You can use reflection to invoke various methods on that object.
However, as we've been trying to explain, that's mostly rather pointless.
Say you set this all up. At runtime you get com class com.acme.RATO. You've never heard of this class before. At compile time, when you're writing the code that will invoke a c'tor and some methods on this class.
Which c'tor will you invoke? What args will you pass it? Which methods will you invoke? What args? Why?
Now, I say mostly pointless because you don't have to know at compile time which c'tors, methods, args to use. For something like [url http:/www.beanshell.org]BeanShell, the user provides that stuff at runtime.