- 1.1 Organization of the Specification
- 1.2 Example Programs
- 1.3 Notation
- 1.4 Relationship to Predefined Classes and Interfaces
- 1.5 Feedback
- 1.6 References
1.4 Relationship to Predefined Classes and Interfaces
As noted above, this specification often refers to classes of the Java SE platform API. In particular, some classes have a special relationship with the Java programming language. Examples include classes such as Object, Class, ClassLoader, String, Thread, and the classes and interfaces in package java.lang.reflect, among others. This specification constrains the behavior of such classes and interfaces, but does not provide a complete specification for them. The reader is referred to the Java SE platform API documentation.
Consequently, this specification does not describe reflection in any detail. Many linguistic constructs have analogs in the Core Reflection API (java.lang.reflect) and the Language Model API (javax.lang.model), but these are generally not discussed here. For example, when we list the ways in which an object can be created, we generally do not include the ways in which the Core Reflection API can accomplish this. Readers should be aware of these additional mechanisms even though they are not mentioned in the text.