How to read the value of a private field from a different class in Java?

Question

I have a poorly designed class in a 3rd-party JAR and I need to access one of its private fields. For example, why should I need to choose priv

Answer 1

It is quite easy with the tool XrayInterface. Just define the missing getters/setters, e.g.

interface BetterDesigned {
  Hashtable getStuffIWant(); //is mapped by convention to stuffIWant
}

and xray your poor designed project:

IWasDesignedPoorly obj = new IWasDesignedPoorly();
BetterDesigned better = ...;
System.out.println(better.getStuffIWant());

Internally this relies on reflection.