Difference between long.Class and Long.TYPE

Question

Do they both return the same thing i.e Long Class. Actually i was using this within PrivilegedAccessor to pass as following

PrivilegedAccessor.invokeMethod(MyClass,
                "MyMethod", new Object[] { arg1, arg2 },
                new Class[] { long.class, Date.class });

Alternatively I can use

PrivilegedAccessor.invokeMethod(MyClass,
                    "MyMethod", new Object[] { arg1, arg2 },
                    new Class[] { Long.TYPE, Date.class });

Which is better to be used keeping in mind autoboxing / unboxing overheads.

** I am passing primitive long from the Test and even the tested method expects primitive long only.

Answer 1

They both represent the long primitive type. They are exactly the same, even in the compiled bytecode. Sample program:

public class Main
{
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      Class<Long> c = Long.TYPE;
      Class<Long> c1 = long.class;
   }
}

Then, using javap -c Main:

c:\dev\src\misc>javap -c Main
Compiled from "Main.java"
public class Main {
  public Main();
    Code:
       0: aload_0
       1: invokespecial #1                  // Method java/lang/Object."<init>":
()V
       4: return

  public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
    Code:
       0: getstatic     #2                  // Field java/lang/Long.TYPE:Ljava/lang/Class;
       3: astore_1
       4: getstatic     #2                  // Field java/lang/Long.TYPE:Ljava/lang/Class;
       7: astore_2
       8: return
}