Is it possible to invoke private attributes or methods via reflection

Question

I was trying to fetch the value of an static private attribute via reflection, but it fails with an error.

Class class = home.Student.class;
Field field = st         


        

Answer 1

Yes it is. You have to set them accessible using setAccessible(true) defined in AccesibleObject that is a super class of both Field and Method

With the static field you should be able to do:

Class class = home.Student.class;
Field field = studentClass.getDeclaredField("nstance");
field.setAccessible(true); // suppress Java access checking
Object obj = field.get(null); // as the field is a static field  
                              // the instance parameter is ignored 
                              // and may be null. 
field.setAccesible(false); // continue to use Java access checking

And with the private method

Method method = studentClass.getMethod("addMarks");
method.setAccessible(true); // exactly the same as with the field
method.invoke(studentClass.newInstance(), 1);

And with a private constructor:

Constructor constructor = studentClass.getDeclaredConstructor(param, types);
constructor.setAccessible(true);
constructor.newInstance(param, values);