What is reflection and why is it useful?

Question

What is reflection, and why is it useful?

I\'m particularly interested in Java, but I assume the principles are the same in any language.

Answer 1

Reflection is to let object to see their appearance. This argument seems nothing to do with reflection. In fact, this is the "self-identify" ability.

Reflection itself is a word for such languages that lack the capability of self-knowledge and self-sensing as Java and C#. Because they do not have the capability of self-knowledge, when we want to observe how it looks like, we must have another thing to reflect on how it looks like. Excellent dynamic languages such as Ruby and Python can perceive the reflection of their own without the help of other individuals. We can say that the object of Java cannot perceive how it looks like without a mirror, which is an object of the reflection class, but an object in Python can perceive it without a mirror. So that's why we need reflection in Java.