why MyClass.class exists in java and MyField.field isn't?

Question

Let\'s say I have:

class A {
    Integer b;
    void c() {}
}

Why does Java have this syntax: A.class, and doesn\'t have a syntax

Answer 1

In java, Not everything is an object.

You can have

A a = new A()
Class cls = a.getClass()

or directly from the class

A.class

With this you get the object for the class.

With reflection you can get methods and fields but this gets complicated. Since not everything is an object. This is not a language like Scala or Ruby where everything is an object. Reflection tutorial : http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/reflect/index.html

BTW: You did not specify the public/private/protected , so by default your things are declared package private. This is package level protected access http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/javaOO/accesscontrol.html