Bytecode manipulation with Javassist for fun and profit part I: Implementing a lightweight IoC container in 300 lines of code
by Jerome Kehrli
Posted on Monday Feb 13, 2017 at 09:30PM in Java
Java bytecode is the form of instructions that the JVM executes.
A Java programmer, normally, does not need to be aware of how Java bytecode works.
Understanding the bytecode, however, is essential to the areas of tooling and program analysis, where the applications can modify the bytecode to adjust the behavior according to the application's domain. Profilers, mocking tools, AOP, ORM frameworks, IoC Containers, boilerplate code generators, etc. require to understand Java bytecode thoroughly and come up with means of manipulating it at runtime.
Each and every of these advanced features of what is nowadays standard approaches when programming with Java require a sound understanding of the Java bytecode, not to mention completely new languages running on the JVM such as Scala or Clojure.
Bytecode manipulation is not easy though ... except with Javassist.
Of all the libraries and tools providing advanced bytecode manipulation features, Javassist is the easiest to use and the quickest to master. It takes a few minutes to every initiated Java developer to understand and be able to use Javassist efficiently. And mastering bytecode manipulation, opens a whole new world of approaches and possibilities.
The goal of this article is to present Javassist in the light of a concrete use case: the implementation in a little more than 300 lines of code of a lightweight, simple but cute IoC Container: SCIF - Simple and Cute IoC Framework.
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