Java: What scenarios call for the use of reflection?

Question

So from reading some of the articles, the message i got out of it was being able to modify fields and set values to classes in real time without recompiling.

so is i

Answer 1

Reflection is also useful in cases where configuration is required to string things together. For example, in an application I wrote I have a @Report("debits") annotation that is simply added to methods that generate reports. Then, in the XML configuration a user can simply add:

This minimizes boiler plate code from mapping the XML code to the actual method, since reflection can discover the report methods and make it available directly.