What is the difference between canonical name, simple name and class name in Java Class?

Question

In Java, what is the difference between these:

Object o1 = ....
o1.getClass().getSimpleName();
o1.getClass().getName();
o1.getClass().getCanonicalName();
         


        

Answer 1

It is interesting to note that getCanonicalName() and getSimpleName() can raise InternalError when the class name is malformed. This happens for some non-Java JVM languages, e.g., Scala.

Consider the following (Scala 2.11 on Java 8):

scala> case class C()
defined class C

scala> val c = C()
c: C = C()

scala> c.getClass.getSimpleName
java.lang.InternalError: Malformed class name
  at java.lang.Class.getSimpleName(Class.java:1330)
  ... 32 elided

scala> c.getClass.getCanonicalName
java.lang.InternalError: Malformed class name
  at java.lang.Class.getSimpleName(Class.java:1330)
  at java.lang.Class.getCanonicalName(Class.java:1399)
  ... 32 elided

scala> c.getClass.getName
res2: String = C

This can be a problem for mixed language environments or environments that dynamically load bytecode, e.g., app servers and other platform software.