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Adding class paths to SystemClassLoader

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23 Jan 2011CPOL 28.9K   133   3   2
How to add class paths to SystemClassLoader.

Introduction

This article is a non-recommended hack for dynamically adding a class path to SystemClassLoader. You should re-think your design before using this hack; usually, you should be able to use URLClassLoader to load whatever you want.

About SystemClassLoader

SystemClassLoaders are usually URLClassLoaders, and in URLClassLoader, there is a method called addURL(), so we can make use of this to add paths/jars to SystemClassLoader dynamically at runtime. However, since "addURL()" is a protected method, we have to use Reflection to call it.

The sample code is as follows:

Java
public static void addURLs(URL[] urls) {
  ClassLoader cl = ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader();
  if ( cl instanceof URLClassLoader ) {
    URLClassLoader ul = (URLClassLoader)cl;
    // addURL is a protected method, but we can use reflection to call it
    Class<?>[] paraTypes = new Class[1];
    paraTypes[0] = URL.class;
    Method method = URLClassLoader.class.getDeclaredMethod("addURL", paraTypes);
    // change access to true, otherwise, it will throw exception
    method.setAccessible(true);
    Object[] args = new Object[1];
    for(int i=0; i<urls.length; i++) {
      args[0] = urls[i];
      method.invoke(ul, args);
    }
  } else {
    // SystemClassLoader is not URLClassLoader....
  }
}

Test

I have written a test case, and it will automatically load all "lib/*.jar" and instantiate an object as specified in args[0]. The test output is as follows. Note: I only included "bin" as my class path, and I have commons-collections.jar under my "lib" directory, but the program is still able to dynamically load the required class.

Image 1

History

  • 2010.01.20: First draft.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


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Hong Kong Hong Kong
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Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralInteresting, but well known and not recommended hack Pin
Alexandre Nikolov20-Jan-11 22:19
Alexandre Nikolov20-Jan-11 22:19 
GeneralRe: Interesting, but well known and not recommended hack Pin
Sam NG23-Jan-11 16:50
Sam NG23-Jan-11 16:50 
Hi Nikolov,

I completely agree with your comment and I updated the introduction to remind people they should try to rethink their design instead of just hacking the SystemClassLoader.

For me, I am extending JUnit to do some special testing, and the system requires some jars from a commercial software, and of course I can't redistribute those jars. Because I want to make the unit test easier to use (so it is easier to force developers to use this), the program will do some auto-discovery by searching the PATH to detect the install path of the commercial software if the classpath is not setup properly. I have tried using URLClassLoader to load the jars I need, but since "this" is still loaded by the SystemClassLoader, lots of the classes still can't be resolved. Unless I change my code to remove all the "compile-time dependency", i.e. loading everything by Class.forName, and use reflection to call all methods, and I have used this method on another (simpler) project, I can't think of another solution that can solve this problem.

If you have some other ideas/recommendations on how to handle this properly, please share with me because I come across of this problem very often. Thanks.

Sam

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