### Reflection (taken from [oracle java tutorial](http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/reflect/index.html))

&gt; Reflection is commonly used by programs which require the ability to examine or modify the runtime behavior of applications running in the Java virtual machine. This is a relatively advanced feature and should be used only by developers who have a strong grasp of the fundamentals of the language. With that caveat in mind, reflection is a powerful technique and can enable applications to perform operations which would otherwise be impossible. 

### Introspection (taken from [archive of sun java beans tutorial](http://web.archive.org/web/20090226224821/http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/javabeans/introspection/index.html))

&gt;Introspection is the automatic process of analyzing a bean&#39;s design patterns to reveal the bean&#39;s properties, events, and methods. This process controls the publishing and discovery of bean operations and properties. 

Introspection uses reflection, the relationship between Introspection and Reflection can be seen as similar to JavaBeans and other Java classes.

It might be worth while to look at [&quot;Reflection &amp; Introspection: Objects Exposed&quot;][1] where it goes into detail regarding perfomance and usage. Please note that the article is outdated, 1998.

Hope this helps.

  [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20191223070919/http://java.sys-con.com/node/35980

I am using maven-assembly plugin to create a jar of my application, including its dependencies as follows:

    &lt;assembly&gt;
        &lt;id&gt;macosx&lt;/id&gt;
        &lt;formats&gt;
           &lt;format&gt;tar.gz&lt;/format&gt;
           &lt;format&gt;dir&lt;/format&gt;
        &lt;/formats&gt;
        &lt;dependencySets&gt;
            &lt;dependencySet&gt;
                &lt;includes&gt;
                    &lt;include&gt;*:jar&lt;/include&gt;
                &lt;/includes&gt;
                &lt;outputDirectory&gt;lib&lt;/outputDirectory&gt;
            &lt;/dependencySet&gt;
        &lt;/dependencySets&gt;
    &lt;/assembly&gt;

(I omitted some other stuff that is not related to the question)

So far this has worked fine because it creates a `lib` directory with all dependencies. However, I recently added a new dependency whose scope is `system`, and it does not copy it to the `lib` output directory. i must be missing something basic here, so I call for help.

The dependency that I just added is:

    &lt;dependency&gt;
      &lt;groupId&gt;sourceforge.jchart2d&lt;/groupId&gt;
      &lt;artifactId&gt;jchart2d&lt;/artifactId&gt;
      &lt;version&gt;3.1.0&lt;/version&gt;
      &lt;scope&gt;system&lt;/scope&gt;
      &lt;systemPath&gt;${project.basedir}/external/jchart2d-3.1.0.jar&lt;/systemPath&gt;
    &lt;/dependency&gt;

The only way I was able to include this dependency was by adding the following to the assembly element:
    
    &lt;files&gt;
        &lt;file&gt;
            &lt;source&gt;external/jchart2d-3.1.0.jar&lt;/source&gt;
            &lt;outputDirectory&gt;lib&lt;/outputDirectory&gt;
        &lt;/file&gt;
    &lt;/files&gt;

However, this forces me to change the pom and the assembly file whenever this jar is renamed, if ever. Also, it seems just wrong.

I have tried with `&lt;scope&gt;runtime&lt;/scope&gt;` in the `dependencySets` and `&lt;include&gt;sourceforge.jchart2d:jchart2d&lt;/include&gt;` with no luck.

So how do you include a `system` scoped jar to your assembly file in maven 2?

Thanks a lot

Maven 2 assembly with dependencies: jar under scope &quot;system&quot; not included

Is there a command in Microsoft SQL Server T-SQL to tell the script to stop processing?
I have a script that I want to keep for archival purposes, but I don&#39;t want anyone to run it.


T-SQL STOP or ABORT command in SQL Server

Can any one explain the use of Java reflection and introspection? When we need to use both?


Java introspection and reflection

<p>Can any one explain the use of Java reflection and introspection? When we need to use both?</p>


I&#39;m interested in writing a visualization program for the road data in the [2009 Tiger/Line Shapefiles][1].  I&#39;d like to draw the line data to display all the roads for my county.

&gt; The ESRI Shapefile or simply a
&gt; shapefile is a popular geospatial
&gt; vector data format for geographic
&gt; information systems software. It is
&gt; developed and regulated by ESRI as a
&gt; (mostly) open specification for data
&gt; interoperability among ESRI and other
&gt; software products.[1] A &quot;shapefile&quot;
&gt; commonly refers to a collection of
&gt; files with &quot;.shp&quot;, &quot;.shx&quot;, &quot;.dbf&quot;, and
&gt; other extensions on a common prefix
&gt; name (e.g., &quot;lakes.*&quot;). The actual
&gt; shapefile relates specifically to
&gt; files with the &quot;.shp&quot; extension,
&gt; however this file alone is incomplete
&gt; for distribution, as the other
&gt; supporting files are required.

Does anyone know of existing libraries for parsing and reading in the line data for [Shapefiles][2]?



  [1]: http://www.census.gov/geo/www/tiger/tgrshp2009/documentation.html
  [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapefile

Does anyone know of a library in Java that can parse ESRI Shapefiles?

Can you do something like this in a velocity template?

    #set ($map = $myobject.getMap() )
    #foreach ($mapEntry in $map.entrySet())
        &lt;name&gt;$mapEntry.key()&lt;/name&gt;
        &lt;value&gt;$mapEntry.value()&lt;/value&gt;
    #end

it outputs blank tags like so:

    &lt;name&gt;&lt;/name&gt; 

and

    &lt;value&gt;&lt;/value&gt; 

What am I doing wrong?

in velocity can you iterate through a java hashmap&#39;s entry set()?

I was wondering if is it possible to develop iPhone applications using Java plus XMLV, which claims to cross-compile Java-based Android applications to native iPhone applications.  

Is XMLV a viable way to develop iPhone applications using Java?

Here are a few Java code examples used to build and application in an iPhone:

http://www.xmlvm.org/iphone/# 


How can one develop iPhone apps in Java?

Isn&#39;t this one automatically put by the compiler if I don&#39;t put it in a subclass&#39;s constructor?

That means I don&#39;t even need to care about it? In some articles they put it out.

And if I&#39;ve got one constructor with arguments, will this be the constructor, or does it take a constructor without argument list? 

Is it unnecessary to put super() in constructor?

How do I recursively list all files under a directory in Java? Does the framework provide any utility?   

I saw a lot of hacky implementations. But none from the framework or [nio][1]  


  [1]: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/nio/package-summary.html

Recursively list files in Java

This is kind of a silly question, but is it possible to get the name of the method that is currently being executed from within that method?

    Public Sub SomeMethod()
    
       Dim methodName as String = System.Reflection.[function to get the current method name here?]
    
    End Sub

Thanks



Get the name of the current method

If I have a class called `MyProgram`, is there a way of retrieving &quot;*MyProgram*&quot; as a string?

C# getting its own class name

I have a class and I want to find all of its *public fields* (not methods). How can I do this?

Get all variable names in a class

I&#39;m creating a [custom attribute][1] in C# and I want to do different things based on whether the attribute is applied to a method versus a property.  At first I was going to do `new StackTrace().GetFrame(1).GetMethod()` in my custom attribute constructor to see what method called the attribute constructor, but now I&#39;m unsure what that will give me.  What if the attribute was applied to a property?  Would `GetMethod()` return a `MethodBase` instance for that property?  Is there a different way of getting the member to which an attribute was applied in C#?

    [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Method | AttributeTargets.Property,
        AllowMultiple = true)]
    public class MyCustomAttribute : Attribute

__Update:__  okay, I might have been asking the wrong question.  From within a custom attribute class, how do I get the member (or the class containing the member) to which my custom attribute was applied?  [Aaronaught][2] suggested against walking up the stack to find the class member to which my attribute was applied, but how else would I get this information from within the constructor of my attribute?

  [1]: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/sw480ze8(VS.80).aspx
  [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2168942/c-custom-attributes-how-to-get-the-member-type-to-which-an-attribute-was-appl/2169177#2169177

How do I get the member to which my custom attribute was applied?

I come from low level languages - C++ is the highest level I program in.

Recently I came across Reflection, and I just cannot fathom how it could be used without code smells.

The idea of inspecting a class/method/function during runtime, in my opinion, points to a flaw in design - I think most problems Reflection (tries to) solve could be used with either Polymorphism or proper use of inheritance.

Am I wrong? Do I misunderstand the concept and utility of Reflection?

I am looking for a good explanation of when to utilize Reflection where other solutions will fail or be too cumbersome to implement as well as when NOT to use it.

Please enlighten this low-level lubber.

How could Reflection not lead to code smells?

How do I check if an object is an instance of a [Named tuple][1]?


  [1]: http://docs.python.org/dev/library/collections.html#namedtuple-factory-function-for-tuples-with-named-fields

How to check if an object is an instance of a namedtuple?

Is there a built in method, function, API, commonly accepted way, etc. to dump the contents of an instantiated object in Objective-C, specifically in Apple&#39;s Cocoa/Cocoa-Touch environment?

I want to be able to do something like

	MyType *the_thing = [[MyType alloc] init];
	NSString *the_dump = [the_thing dump]; //pseudo code
	NSLog(&quot;Dumped Contents: %@&quot;, the_dump);
	
and have the object&#39;s instance variable names and values displayed, along with any methods available to call at run time. Ideally in an easy to read format.

For developers familiar with PHP, I&#39;m basically looking for the equivalent of the reflection functions (`var_dump()`, `get_class_methods()`) and the OO Reflection API. 


Objective-C Introspection/Reflection

I know you can do

    this.GetType().FullName

To get

    My.Current.Class

But what can I call to get

    My.Current.Class.CurrentMethod



How to get the name of the current method from code

Python: How to get the caller&#39;s method name in the called method?

Assume I have 2 methods:

    def method1(self):
        ...
        a = A.method2()

    def method2(self):
        ...

If I don&#39;t want to do any change for method1, how to get the name of the caller (in this example, the name is method1) in method2?

How to get the caller&#39;s method name in the called method?

In Java, you can do `instanceof`. Is there a Ruby equivalent? 

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	RKCY	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Java	Anthony Forloney	View Answer on Stackoverflow

Java introspection and reflection

Java Problem Overview

Java Solutions

Solution 1 - Java

Reflection (taken from oracle java tutorial)

Introspection (taken from archive of sun java beans tutorial)

T-SQL STOP or ABORT command in SQL Server

Maven 2 assembly with dependencies: jar under scope "system" not included

Attributions