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javareflectionconstructorprivate

Java: accessing private constructor with type parameters

This is a followup to this question about java private constructors.

Suppose I have the following class:

class Foo<T>
{
    private T arg;
    private Foo(T t) {
        // private!
        this.arg = t;
    }   

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "My argument is: " + arg;
    }   
}

How would I construct a new Foo("hello") using reflection?

ANSWER

Based on jtahlborn's answer, the following works:

public class Example {
    public static void main(final String[] args) throws Exception {
        Constructor<Foo> constructor;
        constructor = Foo.class.getDeclaredConstructor(Object.class);
        constructor.setAccessible(true);
        Foo<String> foo = constructor.newInstance("arg1");
        System.out.println(foo);
    }   
}
Solution

  • you would need to get the class, find the constructor which takes a single argument with the lower bound of T (in this case Object), force the constructor to be accessible (using the setAccessible method), and finally invoke it with the desired argument.