Question

Sometimes I need to test which class has declared some variable(s), is there another way how to test that, if concrete class contains variable with some name

try {
   testLocalVariable = (String) (this.getClass().getDeclaredField("testVariable").get(this));
} catch (NoSuchFieldException ex) {
} catch (SecurityException ex) {
} catch (IllegalArgumentException ex) {
} catch (IllegalAccessException ex) {
}

Answer 1

If I understand correctly, you use this code in a superclass to test if a subclass has a testVariable field.

Why don’t you simply add a method like this?

 /**
  * Returns true if the object declares a testVariable field, false otherwise. Subclasses should
  * override this method
  */
protected boolean hasTestVariableField() {
    return false;
}

Seems much more OO to me, doesn’t break encapsulation.

That said, I’ve not really understood why you needed this in the first place.