How to call a method with a string

Question

I am trying to use a string to call a method?

Suppose I have a class called Kyle which has 3 methods:

public void Test();
public void Ronaldo();
public void MakeThis();

And I have a string with the name of the method which I need to call:

String text = "Test()";

Now I need to call the method whose name is inside of this string:

Kyle k = new Kyle();

k.text;?

Answer 1

You'll need to use java Reflection to do this.

See: Class.getMethod()

Using your specific example:

String text = "Test";
Kyle k = new Kyle();
Class clas = k.getClass();

// you'll need to handle exceptions from these methods, or throw them:
Method method = clas.getMethod(text, null);
method.invoke(k, null);

That's without the exception handling required for getMethod() and Method.invoke(), and only covers the case of calling methods that take no arguments.

See also:

• Method doc
• Class doc
• This reflection article with examples