Public field from String - How can you get a public field vis its name(string)

Question

So in a class (ImportantClass123) I have this:

public AnotherImportantClass aReallyImportantClass;

How do I return

AnotherImportantClass

via knowledge of what its named as a field:

aReallyImportantClass

Something like

ImportantClass123.getFieldWithName("aReallyImportantClass");

?

How would I write getFieldWithName? and what would be its return type? Class?

Answer 1

You can use reflection to get to that information. The method Class.getField(String) returns a Field object for the public field given by name. And the Field object has a method getType() that will give you the type of that field:

public class Snippet {
    public Integer x;

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        Field x = Snippet.class.getField("x");
        Class<?> type = x.getType();
        System.out.println("Type of field x: " + type);
    }
}