Getting a property/field name using getter method of a pojo/java bean?

Question

I have a below class and i need to get field name from getter method using java reflection. Is it possible to get field name or property name using getter method?

class A {

    private String name;
    private String salary;

    // getter and setter methods
}

My questions is: can i get field/property name by getter method? If I use getName(), can I get name property? I need name property but not its value. Is it possible through java reflection?

Answer 1

yes it's 100% possible..

public static String getFieldName(Method method)
{
    try
    {
        Class<?> clazz=method.getDeclaringClass();
        BeanInfo info = Introspector.getBeanInfo(clazz);  
        PropertyDescriptor[] props = info.getPropertyDescriptors();  
        for (PropertyDescriptor pd : props) 
        {  
            if(method.equals(pd.getWriteMethod()) || method.equals(pd.getReadMethod()))
            {
                System.out.println(pd.getDisplayName());
                return pd.getName();
            }
        }
    }
    catch (IntrospectionException e) 
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    catch (Exception e) 
    {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }


    return null;
}

Answer 2

The reflection-util library provides a way to determine the property (name) in a type-safe manner. For example by using the getter method:

String propertyName = PropertyUtils.getPropertyName(A.class, A::getSalary);

The value of propertyName would be "salary" in this case.

Disclaimer: I’m one of the authors of the reflection-util library.

Answer 3

You cannot inspect what code does by using reflection.

You can assume that a getName() method read a field called name and does nothing else. However there is no requirement for it to so. e.g. the field name might be m_name or _name or nameField or not even be a field.