How to go down the class tree

Question

For example, I want to know what are subclasses of class Animal (here Dog, Cat) ?
class Animal {
class Dog extends Animal{
class Cat extends Animal {
Java reflection has a method to go up the tree getSuperClass(). How can I go down the tree ? If there isn't a method like that, please help me some idea so that I can do it myself.
Thanks a lot

Answer 1

There is no way until the class is loaded anyway. That requires that something has instantiated or referenced it.
You can get part way there by getting things to register themselves somewhere during construction:
public Animal()
  CLASS_SET.add(getClass());
}But that's not exactly ideal. In fact, it stinks. My guess is that you're better off designing around this problem so that you don't need to know in the first place.
Hope this helps.