Main Tutorials

Java – find class fields with specified data type

Some Java reflection API examples.

1. Display all fields and data type

A Java reflection example to loop over all the fields declared by a class.

1.1 A POJO.

CompanyA.java

package com.mkyong.test;

import java.util.List;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;

public class CompanyA {

    String orgName;
    int count;
    List<String> comments;
    Set<String> branches;
    Map<String, String> extra;

    //...
}

1.2 Use Java reflection APIs getDeclaredFields() to loop over and display the field name and data type.

Test.java

package com.mkyong.test;

import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.util.List;

public class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Field[] fields = CompanyA.class.getDeclaredFields();
        for(Field f : fields){
            Class t = f.getType();
            System.out.println("field name : " + f.getName() + " , type : " + t);
        }

    }

}

Output

field name : orgName , type :class java.lang.String
field name : count , type :int
field name : comments , type :interface java.util.List
field name : branches , type :interface java.util.Set
field name : extra , type :interface java.util.Map

2. Find class fields with specified data type

2.1 This example will find all fields with List data type.

Test.java

package com.mkyong.test;

import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class TestAbc {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        List<String> list = getFieldNameWithListDataType();
        for(String data : list){
            System.out.println("List : " + data);
        }


    }

    private static List<String> getFieldNameWithListDataType(){

        List<String> result = new ArrayList<>();

        //CompanyA, refer 1.1
        Field[] fields = CompanyA.class.getDeclaredFields();
        for(Field f : fields){

            // use equals to compare the data type.
            if(f.getType().equals(List.class)){
                result.add(f.getName());
            }

            //for other data type
			
            //Map
            //if(f.getType().equals(Map.class)) 
			
            //Set
            //if(f.getType().equals(Set.class))
			
            //primitive int
            //if(f.getType().equals(int.class))
            //if(f.getType().equals(Integer.TYPE))
			
            //primitive long
            //if(f.getType().equals(long.class))
            //if(f.getType().equals(Long.TYPE))
			
        }

        return result;

    }

}

Output

comments
Note
For primitive types like int, you can compare with int.class or Integer.TYPE

References

  1. Oracle : Java Reflection examples
  2. Oracle : Class – getDeclaredFields Javadoc

About Author

author image
Founder of Mkyong.com, love Java and open source stuff. Follow him on Twitter. If you like my tutorials, consider make a donation to these charities.

Comments

Subscribe
Notify of
3 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Alain Van Hout
7 years ago

How about using streams and filter to do this? Something along the lines of:

return Arrays.asList(this.getClass().getDeclaredFields()).stream()
.filter(f -> f.getType().equals(List.class))
.map(Field::getName)
.collect(Collectors.toList());

(not necessarily better, just an alternative approach)

mkyong
7 years ago
Reply to  Alain Van Hout

Nice Stream example, thanks!

Siva Divi
4 years ago
Reply to  mkyong

Could you please give example to read values of Fields using streams?