How do I read all classes from a Java package in the classpath?

Question

If you have Spring in you classpath then the following will do it.

Find all classes in a package that are annotated with XmlRootElement:

private List<Class> findMyTypes(String basePackage) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException
{
    ResourcePatternResolver resourcePatternResolver = new PathMatchingResourcePatternResolver();
    MetadataReaderFactory metadataReaderFactory = new CachingMetadataReaderFactory(resourcePatternResolver);

    List<Class> candidates = new ArrayList<Class>();
    String packageSearchPath = ResourcePatternResolver.CLASSPATH_ALL_URL_PREFIX +
                               resolveBasePackage(basePackage) + "/" + "**/*.class";
    Resource[] resources = resourcePatternResolver.getResources(packageSearchPath);
    for (Resource resource : resources) {
        if (resource.isReadable()) {
            MetadataReader metadataReader = metadataReaderFactory.getMetadataReader(resource);
            if (isCandidate(metadataReader)) {
                candidates.add(Class.forName(metadataReader.getClassMetadata().getClassName()));
            }
        }
    }
    return candidates;
}

private String resolveBasePackage(String basePackage) {
    return ClassUtils.convertClassNameToResourcePath(SystemPropertyUtils.resolvePlaceholders(basePackage));
}

private boolean isCandidate(MetadataReader metadataReader) throws ClassNotFoundException
{
    try {
        Class c = Class.forName(metadataReader.getClassMetadata().getClassName());
        if (c.getAnnotation(XmlRootElement.class) != null) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    catch(Throwable e){
    }
    return false;
}

I use this one, it works with files or jar archives

public static ArrayList<String>getClassNamesFromPackage(String packageName) throws IOException{
    ClassLoader classLoader = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader();
    URL packageURL;
    ArrayList<String> names = new ArrayList<String>();;

    packageName = packageName.replace(".", "/");
    packageURL = classLoader.getResource(packageName);

    if(packageURL.getProtocol().equals("jar")){
        String jarFileName;
        JarFile jf ;
        Enumeration<JarEntry> jarEntries;
        String entryName;

        // build jar file name, then loop through zipped entries
        jarFileName = URLDecoder.decode(packageURL.getFile(), "UTF-8");
        jarFileName = jarFileName.substring(5,jarFileName.indexOf("!"));
        System.out.println(">"+jarFileName);
        jf = new JarFile(jarFileName);
        jarEntries = jf.entries();
        while(jarEntries.hasMoreElements()){
            entryName = jarEntries.nextElement().getName();
            if(entryName.startsWith(packageName) && entryName.length()>packageName.length()+5){
                entryName = entryName.substring(packageName.length(),entryName.lastIndexOf('.'));
                names.add(entryName);
            }
        }

    // loop through files in classpath
    }else{
    URI uri = new URI(packageURL.toString());
    File folder = new File(uri.getPath());
        // won't work with path which contains blank (%20)
        // File folder = new File(packageURL.getFile()); 
        File[] contenuti = folder.listFiles();
        String entryName;
        for(File actual: contenuti){
            entryName = actual.getName();
            entryName = entryName.substring(0, entryName.lastIndexOf('.'));
            names.add(entryName);
        }
    }
    return names;
}

You could use the Reflections Project described here

It's quite complete and easy to use.

Brief description from the above website:

Reflections scans your classpath, indexes the metadata, allows you to query it on runtime and may save and collect that information for many modules within your project.

Example:

Reflections reflections = new Reflections(
    new ConfigurationBuilder()
        .setUrls(ClasspathHelper.forJavaClassPath())
);
Set<Class<?>> types = reflections.getTypesAnnotatedWith(Scannable.class);

Spring has implemented an excellent classpath search function in the PathMatchingResourcePatternResolver. If you use the classpath*: prefix, you can find all the resources, including classes in a given hierarchy, and even filter them if you want. Then you can use the children of AbstractTypeHierarchyTraversingFilter, AnnotationTypeFilter and AssignableTypeFilter to filter those resources either on class level annotations or on interfaces they implement.