Can you find all classes in a package using reflection?

Question

Is it possible to find all classes or interfaces in a given package? (Quickly looking at e.g. Package, it would seem like no.)

Answer 1

Here's how I do it. I scan all the subfolders (sub-packages) and I don't try to load anonymous classes:

   /**
   * Attempts to list all the classes in the specified package as determined
   * by the context class loader, recursively, avoiding anonymous classes
   * 
   * @param pckgname
   *            the package name to search
   * @return a list of classes that exist within that package
   * @throws ClassNotFoundException
   *             if something went wrong
   */
  private static List getClassesForPackage(String pckgname) throws ClassNotFoundException {
      // This will hold a list of directories matching the pckgname. There may be more than one if a package is split over multiple jars/paths
      ArrayList directories = new ArrayList();
      String packageToPath = pckgname.replace('.', '/');
      try {
          ClassLoader cld = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader();
          if (cld == null) {
              throw new ClassNotFoundException("Can't get class loader.");
          }

          // Ask for all resources for the packageToPath
          Enumeration resources = cld.getResources(packageToPath);
          while (resources.hasMoreElements()) {
              directories.add(new File(URLDecoder.decode(resources.nextElement().getPath(), "UTF-8")));
          }
      } catch (NullPointerException x) {
          throw new ClassNotFoundException(pckgname + " does not appear to be a valid package (Null pointer exception)");
      } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException encex) {
          throw new ClassNotFoundException(pckgname + " does not appear to be a valid package (Unsupported encoding)");
      } catch (IOException ioex) {
          throw new ClassNotFoundException("IOException was thrown when trying to get all resources for " + pckgname);
      }

      ArrayList classes = new ArrayList();
      // For every directoryFile identified capture all the .class files
      while (!directories.isEmpty()){
          File directoryFile  = directories.remove(0);             
          if (directoryFile.exists()) {
              // Get the list of the files contained in the package
              File[] files = directoryFile.listFiles();

              for (File file : files) {
                  // we are only interested in .class files
                  if ((file.getName().endsWith(".class")) && (!file.getName().contains("$"))) {
                      // removes the .class extension
                      int index = directoryFile.getPath().indexOf(packageToPath);
                      String packagePrefix = directoryFile.getPath().substring(index).replace('/', '.');;                          
                    try {                  
                      String className = packagePrefix + '.' + file.getName().substring(0, file.getName().length() - 6);                            
                      classes.add(Class.forName(className));                                
                    } catch (NoClassDefFoundError e)
                    {
                      // do nothing. this class hasn't been found by the loader, and we don't care.
                    }
                  } else if (file.isDirectory()){ // If we got to a subdirectory
                      directories.add(new File(file.getPath()));                          
                  }
              }
          } else {
              throw new ClassNotFoundException(pckgname + " (" + directoryFile.getPath() + ") does not appear to be a valid package");
          }
      }
      return classes;
  }