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* DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER.
*
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* under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as
* published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this
* particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided
* by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code.
*
* This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
* ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or
* FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License
* version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that
* accompanied this code).
*
* You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version
* 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation,
* Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.
*
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package com.sun.jdi;
import java.util.List;
/**
* A class loader object from the target VM.
* A ClassLoaderReference is an {@link ObjectReference} with additional
* access to classloader-specific information from the target VM. Instances
* ClassLoaderReference are obtained through calls to
* {@link ReferenceType#classLoader}
*
* @see ObjectReference
*
* @author Gordon Hirsch
* @since 1.3
*/
public interface ClassLoaderReference extends ObjectReference {
/**
* Returns a list of all loaded classes that were defined by this
* class loader. No ordering of this list guaranteed.
* <P>
* The returned list will include reference types
* loaded at least to the point of preparation and
* types (like array) for which preparation is
* not defined.
*
* @return a List of {@link ReferenceType} objects mirroring types
* loaded by this class loader. The list has length 0 if no types
* have been defined by this classloader.
*/
List<ReferenceType> definedClasses();
/**
* Returns a list of all classes for which this class loader has
* been recorded as the initiating loader in the target VM.
* The list contains ReferenceTypes defined directly by this loader
* (as returned by {@link #definedClasses}) and any types for which
* loading was delegated by this class loader to another class loader.
* <p>
* The visible class list has useful properties with respect to
* the type namespace. A particular type name will occur at most
* once in the list. Each field or variable declared with that
* type name in a class defined by
* this class loader must be resolved to that single type.
* <p>
* No ordering of the returned list is guaranteed.
* <p>
* See the revised
* <a href="http://java.sun.com/docs/books/vmspec/">Java
* Virtual Machine Specification</a> section
* <a href="http://java.sun.com/docs/books/vmspec/2nd-edition/html/ConstantPool.doc.html#72007">5.3
* Creation and Loading</a>
* for more information on the initiating classloader.
* <p>
* Note that unlike {@link #definedClasses()}
* and {@link VirtualMachine#allClasses()},
* some of the returned reference types may not be prepared.
* Attempts to perform some operations on unprepared reference types
* (e.g. {@link ReferenceType#fields() fields()}) will throw
* a {@link ClassNotPreparedException}.
* Use {@link ReferenceType#isPrepared()} to determine if
* a reference type is prepared.
*
* @return a List of {@link ReferenceType} objects mirroring classes
* initiated by this class loader. The list has length 0 if no classes
* are visible to this classloader.
*/
List<ReferenceType> visibleClasses();
}