The .class property

[Dmitriy Pavlyuk]

Explain me please, where from the .class property appears in any Object descendant. It's not in Object!

[Cindy Glass]

I am going to guess that you are asking about reflection.
The JVM creates the Class object for each class.
From the API for Class:

Class has no public constructor. Instead Class objects are constructed automatically by the Java Virtual Machine as classes are loaded and by calls to the defineClass method in the class loader.

[Junilu Lacar]

Or perhaps you are referring to Class Literals, which are evaluated at compile time and evaluate to the Class object of the named type. Refer to JLS �15.8.2 Sample usage below:

class A {}
class B {
    void test() {
        Class classOfA = A.class;
        System.out.println(classOfA);
    }
}

[This message has been edited by JUNILU LACAR (edited June 28, 2001).]

[rani bedi]

Whats the use of the Class Literal?

[Jim Yingst]

Well, it allows you to refer to a particular Class object directly, without having to create an instance of the class first. If I want a StringBuffer Class object, it's more efficient to say "StringBuffer.class" than "new StringBuffer().getClass()".