Finding field exist or not through reflection

Question

My class structure is as follows

   ClassA{}
   ClassB extends ClassA{}
   ClassC extends ClassB{}

these classes contains a field say name, I did not know in which class this field is present, i have a string name and object of ClassC. I am using reflection to get the field my code is

  private static Field getType(Object obj,String fieldName){

            Field type = null;
            try
            {
                    type = obj.getClass().getDeclaredField(fieldName);
            } 
            catch (NoSuchFieldException e) {
                    try
                    {
                            type = obj.getClass().getSuperclass().getDeclaredField(fieldName);
                    }
                    catch (NoSuchFieldException e1) {
                            e.printStackTrace();
                    }
            } catch (SecurityException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
            }
            return type;
    }

But it will check for field only in the current class and its super class, if i want to check the field till top level class, I need to keep write try catch blocks. i think it is not the correct way. Is there any alternate solution for this? Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I think that you are trying to do something like:

   Class cls = obj.getClass();        
    for (Class acls = cls; acls != null; acls = acls.getSuperclass()) {
      try {
        Field field = acls.getDeclaredField(fieldName);
        // if not found exception thrown
        // else return field
        return field;
      } catch (NoSuchFieldException ex) {
        // ignore
      }
    }

Answer 2

Use getField instead of getDeclaredField. It will look for the field in interfaces and parent classes recursively if it's not found immediately in the given class.