PHP like Autoloader in Java

Question

Does the Java Interpreter support an Autoloader-Function or a possibility to extend his "Looking for a class"-function?

In PHP there is a function called spl_autoload_register (see http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.spl-autoload-register.php for details ), which forces the interpreter to execute my own callback function when he is looking for a missing class. In my callback function I can include the file with the expected class.

The background-idea is that I'd like to switch dynamically between software-layers.

For example:
If class x_L2 exists in layer 2 then class x_L1 in the underlying layer 1 should be ignored. Actually I solved this issue with a general mirror class x, which have to inherit from the class in the highest available layer. But this way is error-prone when you have to maintain hundreds of classes.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

This can be done by using a different class loader such as URLClassLoader. Then, you would get your classes from this class loader with loadClass. Yes, it also supports local and remote resources.