Thread: Possible to check if classes contains a specific method and then run that method?

Hello!
I'm working on a simple 2D Game Framework. Currently it's creating a window, but I'm working on an update method.
I constantly export the framework as a .jar file, and I've added it to the game's build path (using eclipse). I wonder if I can check all classes in the game-project (the project in which I've refecrenced the Framework in) for a specific method (for example update()) and call all found methods with that name from the framework's main class, like this:

public class FrameworkClass1 {
 
    private void checkForUpdateMethods() {
        // Check for update methods on program start
    }
 
    public void update() {
        runAllFoundUpdateMethods();     // Run all update methods found in the scan
    }
}

I wan't to do this because it would be a simple way to update and render the game.
If the main game-class look something like this:

public class Game {
    public void update() {
        // Update the game every time this is ran
    }
}

it will be automatically updated, because it contains a method named update(), instead of naming the main game-class with a specific name etc.
It will simply be more flexible that way!

Thanks!
/TheDDestroyer12

How about an interface "Updateable" which provides the "update()" method?
Then you could simply have a List of Updateables in your framework and update all updateables on a regular basis.

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There are no wildcard calls like: *.update(), where * would be a wildcard for any class name. And those would have to be static calls.

I don't know enough about your design to make an informed suggestion, but it seems that the multiple update() methods or the objects that contain them could be responsible for knowing when the updates should occur by monitoring events from a game state controller. You might look into the Observer/Observable and Event Bus patterns to see if those would help simplify your design.

Originally Posted by Cornix

How about an interface "Updateable" which provides the "update()" method?
Then you could simply have a List of Updateables in your framework and update all updateables on a regular basis.

I'm not very familiar with interfaces. Can you pleas explain a little bit more in detail how I can use them for this?

Originally Posted by TheDDestroyer12

I'm not very familiar with interfaces. Can you pleas explain a little bit more in detail how I can use them for this?

I am not going to explain to you what an interface is since there is a lot to be explained about them, but you should definitely read up on them if you want to work with Java. They are a very important part of the language and the standard library and are especially useful when designing an API.

Okay, thanks! I'll try it.