Setting variables by name in Java

Question

I'm looking to implement something in Java along the lines of:

class Foo{
 private int lorem; //
 private int ipsum;      

 public setAttribute(String attr, int val){
  //sets attribute based on name
 }

 public static void main(String [] args){
  Foo f = new Foo();
  f.setAttribute("lorem",1);
  f.setAttribute("ipsum",2);
 }

 public Foo(){}
}

...where a variable is set based on the variable name without the variable names hard-coded and without using any other data structures. Is this possible?

Answer 1

Here's how you might implement setAttribute using reflection (I've renamed the function; there are different reflection functions for different field types):

public void setIntField(String fieldName, int value)
        throws NoSuchFieldException, IllegalAccessException {
    Field field = getClass().getDeclaredField(fieldName);
    field.setInt(this, value);
}