Java: get the called class name from static method

Question

I have two classes defined like this:

class A {
    public static String getName(){
        Class c = getCalledClass();
        return c.getSimpleName();
    }
}

class B extends A {
    //no methods are defined here!
}

I want to know if it is possible to compose the static method getCalledClass() such that calling A.getName() will return A and B.getName() will return B?

Thanks.

Answer 1

This is not possible, at least not in the general sense that you've asked.

There is no method B.getName(). While you can type that in code, it will be compiled to identical bytecode to A.getName() (and I think you get a compiler warning too).

Thus at runtime, there is no way to tell how someone referenced the static method - just as there's no way to tell what local variable names a caller is using.