Dynamic Proxy - Class Loader parameter when creating a new proxy instance

Question

I was wondering about when you call the newProxyInstance method when creating a dynamic proxy instance, what exactly is the ClassLoader argument for?

public static Object newProxyInstance(ClassLoader loader, Class<?>[] interfaces, InvocationHandler h) throws IllegalArgumentException

Many thanks!

P.S. I'm not sure how to use the code formatting tags correctly.

Answer 1

The documentation for newProxyInstance defines its use to be equivalent to:

Proxy.getProxyClass(loader, interfaces).
    getConstructor(new Class[] { InvocationHandler.class }).
    newInstance(new Object[] { handler });

So, if you want a bit more detail about loader, you can look at the documentation for getProxyClass. Basically, it just serves as the class loader that defines the generated proxy class.