Editing Reflective programming (section)

==Uses==
Reflection helps programmers make generic software libraries to display data, process different formats of data, perform [[serialization]] and deserialization of data for communication, or do bundling and unbundling of data for containers or bursts of communication.

Effective use of reflection almost always requires a plan: A design framework, encoding description, object library, a map of a database or entity relations.

Reflection makes a language more suited to network-oriented code. For example, it assists languages such as [[Java (programming language)|Java]] to operate well in networks by enabling libraries for serialization, bundling and varying data formats. Languages without reflection such as [[C (programming language)|C]] are required to use auxiliary compilers for tasks like [[Abstract Syntax Notation]] to produce code for serialization and bundling.

Reflection can be used for observing and modifying program execution at [[Runtime (program lifecycle phase)|runtime]]. A reflection-oriented program component can monitor the execution of an enclosure of code and can modify itself according to a desired goal of that enclosure. This is typically accomplished by dynamically assigning program code at runtime.

In [[object-oriented programming]] languages such as [[Java (programming language)|Java]], reflection allows ''inspection'' of classes, interfaces, fields and methods at runtime without knowing the names of the interfaces, fields, methods at [[compile time]]. It also allows ''instantiation'' of new objects and ''invocation'' of methods.

Reflection is often used as part of [[software testing]], such as for the runtime creation/instantiation of [[mock object]]s.

Reflection is also a key strategy for [[metaprogramming]].

In some object-oriented programming languages such as [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]] and [[Java (programming language)|Java]], reflection can be used to bypass [[member accessibility]] rules. For C#-properties this can be achieved by writing directly onto the (usually invisible) backing field of a non-public property. It is also possible to find non-public methods of classes and types and manually invoke them. This works for project-internal files as well as external libraries such as [[.NET Framework|.NET]]'s assemblies and Java's archives.