Javassist version 2

in April, 2003.
Copyright (C) 2000-2003 by Shigeru Chiba, All rights reserved.


Javassist (JAVA programming ASSISTant) is yet another reflective system for Java. It is a class library for editing bytecodes in Java; it enables Java programs to define a new class at runtime and to modify a class file when the JVM loads it. Unlike other similar bytecode editors, Javassist provides two levels of API: source level and bytecode level. If the users use the source-level API, they can edit a class file without knowledge of the specifications of the Java bytecode. The whole API is designed with only the vocabulary of the Java language. You can even specify inserted bytecode in the form of source text; Javassist compiles it on the fly. On the other hand, the bytecode-level API allows the users to directly edit a class file.


Files

To extract source files from the archive, use the jar command:


How to run sample programs

JDK 1.2.2 or later is needed.

1. Move to the directory where this Readme.html file is located.

In the description below, we assume that the platform is JDK 1.2 (or later) for Solaris. If the platform is JDK 1.2 (or later) for Windows, the class-path option is:

If you don't want to put the class-path option, copy ./javassist.jar to

<java-home> depends on the system. It is usually /usr/local/java, c:\jdk1.2\, etc.

If you don't use javassist.jar, first compile Javassist:

Then you can compile and run the sample programs without the class-path option.

2. sample/Test.java

This is a very simple program using Javassist.

To run, type the commands:

For more details, see sample/Test.java

3. sample/reflect/*.java

This is the "verbose metaobject" example well known in reflective programming. This program dynamically attaches a metaobject to a Person object. The metaobject prints a message if a method is called on the Person object.

To run, type the commands:

Compare this result with that of the regular execution without reflection:

For more details, see sample/reflect/Main.java

Furthermore, the Person class can be statically modified so that all the Person objects become reflective without sample.reflect.Main. To do this, type the commands:

Then,

4. sample/duplicate/*.java

This is another example of reflective programming.

To run, type the commands:

Compare this result with that of the regular execution without reflection:

For more details, see sample/duplicate/Main.java

5. sample/vector/*.java

This example shows the use of Javassit for producing a class representing a vector of a given type at compile time. This is a demonstration of the use of javassist.preproc package.

To run, type the commands:

For more details, see sample/vector/Test.j and sample/vector/VectorAssistant.java

6. sample/rmi/*.java

This demonstrates the javassist.rmi package.

To run, type the commands:

The second line starts a web server listening to port 5001.

Then, open sample/rmi/webdemo.html with a web browser running on the local host. (webdemo.html trys to fetch an applet from http://localhost:5001/, which is the web server we started above.)

Otherwise, run sample.rmi.CountApplet as an application:

7. sample/evolve/*.java

This is a demonstration of the class evolution mechanism implemented with Javassist. This mechanism enables a Java program to reload an existing class file under some restriction.

To run, type the commands:

The second line starts a class loader DemoLoader, which runs a web server DemoServer listening to port 5003.

Then, open http://localhost:5003/demo.html with a web browser running on the local host. (Or, see sample/evolve/start.html.)

8. Hints

Javassist provides a class file viewer for debugging. For more details, see javassist.Dump.


Changes

- version 2.5 in April, 2003.
From this version, Javassist is part of the JBoss project.

- version 2.4 in February, 2003.

- version 2.3 in December, 2002.

- version 2.2 in October, 2002.

- version 2.1 in July, 2002.

- version 2.0 (major update) in November, 2001.

version 1.0 in July, 2001.

- version 0.8

- version 0.7

- version 0.6

- version 0.5

- version 0.4

- version 0.3

- version 0.2

-version 0.1 in April, 1999.


Bug reports etc.

Bug reports:
chiba@acm.org
or chiba@is.titech.ac.jp

The home page of Javassist:
http://www.csg.is.titech.ac.jp/~chiba/javassist

The Javassist mailing list:
javassist@csg.is.titech.ac.jp


Copyright notices

Javassist, a Java-bytecode translator toolkit.
Copyright (C) 1999-2003 Shigeru Chiba. All Rights Reserved.

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.


Acknowledgments

The development of this software is sponsored in part by the PRESTO programs of Japan Science and Technology Corporation.

I'd like to thank Michiaki Tatsubori, Johan Cloetens, Philip Tomlinson, Alex Villazon, Pascal Rapicault, Dan HE, Eric Tanter, Michael Haupt, Toshiyuki Sasaki, Renaud Pawlak, Luc Bourlier, Eric Bui, Lewis Stiller, Susumu Yamazaki, Rodrigo Teruo Tomita, Marc Segura-Devillechaise, Jan Baudisch, Julien Blass, Yoshiki Sato, Fabian Crabus, Bo Norregaard Jorgensen, Bob Lee, Bill Burke, Remy Sanlaville, Muga Nishizawa, Alexey Loubyansky, Saori Oki, Andreas Salathe, Dante Torres estrada, S. Pam, Nuno Santos, Denis Taye, and Colin Sampaleanu for their contributions.



Shigeru Chiba (Email: chiba@is.titech.ac.jp)
Dept. of Math. and Computing Sciences, Tokyo Institute of Technology