Looking inside Java classes - javap and javadoc

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Looking inside Java classes - javap and javadoc

Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2009-09-25 16:09:23 - Graham Ellis
javap is a program that looks inside a Java class and reports on all the methods and variables that are exposed by that class ... so it's looking at a Java class's object format.

javadoc is a program that analyses Java source code and reports on all the methods that are exposed by that class.

javap is command line based, but javadoc produces a whole web site in HTML format ... here's the javap output from our "Time" class from this week:

Dorothy-2:java grahamellis$ javap Time

Compiled from "Time.java"

public class Time extends java.lang.Object{

  public int hour;

  public int minute;

  public int second;

  public static int howmany;

  public Time(int, int, int);

  public Time(int, int);

  public int getsid();

  public int gethour();

  public void setforward(int);

  public java.lang.String getdef();

  public int getgap(Time);

  public static int getcount();

  static {};

}

And here's part of the javadoc output from the same class:

Explore the full javadoc tree from this week if you wish. It's in HTML, using frames (so I can't easily provide you with a link to the intermediate pages without doctoring files and URLs!) but it WILL take you all the way from Adam to Zoe!