Question

I have a class like

class A {

    private String property1;

    private String property2;

    private String property3;

    // constructor , getters , setters 

}

it is possible to get a list/array of the names of properties of this class in the order they appear in the source file ? like ["property1", "property2", "property3"]

Answer 1

The answer is that you can’t. The information you require is not available at runtime from the .class files.

In some other parts of my code i need to “print” the data of this class in certain order. This class in the real case has a lot of properties and can change (as the order) so, i can write this array/list by myself to get the order i need but if it is possible to get it from the class it would be better for me.

Here are some better ways to solve this problem:

• Sort the properties before printing, by name or by type name, or something that makes sense.
• Embed an array in the bean class (or another class) that defines the bean property order.
• Create a separate metadata file that specifies the bean property order.

You could do some build time pre-processing of your source code to extract the order of the properties and (say) write them to a file. But frankly, I think it is better to detach these aspects; e.g. so that your system integrators / end-users could tweak the property order without changing the source code.