Getting the "code" of a class as byte array

Question

Hi!
My problem is the following. My algorithm gets a Class object and it should return the code of the class as byte array.
e.g. public byte [] getTheCode (Class forThisClass);
I found out, that I can get an InputStream for a ressource, so that i can load my own classes like getResourceAsStream("my/package/MyClass.class"), but it should also be possible to get the code of the built-in classes like String, Integer etc.
thanks, Ingo

Answer 1

The real name of String is java.lang.String; perhaps you didn't use the full name.No, that's not the problem. The classloader of java.lang.String is usually the bootstrap class loader, and its Class.getClassLoader() == null.
Class.getClassLoader() explicitly defers to the system class loader (not the bootstrap class loader) if getClassLoader() == null, The system class loader (the thing that looks at CLASSPATH, etc.) cannot load anything from rt.jar.
So basically I think you're sort of SOL, unless you want to check for this condition yourself. I.e. first try your approach (using getResourceAsStream()), and if that returns null, go and open ${java.home}/lib/rt.jar, and walk it on your own.