kotlinreflect

KotlinReflection is a library that provides reflection capabilities for the Kotlin programming language. Reflection allows a program to examine, introspect, and modify its own structure and behavior at runtime. With KotlinReflection, developers can inspect classes, properties, functions, and other program elements, discover their types, modifiers, and values, and even invoke methods or create instances dynamically.

This library is particularly useful for tasks such as serialization, dependency injection frameworks, debugging tools, and code generation. It offers a more idiomatic and type-safe way to perform reflection compared to Java's reflection API. KotlinReflection exposes Kotlin-specific features like properties, extension functions, and default parameter values through its reflection API.

The core components of KotlinReflection include KClass, KCallable, KProperty, and KFunction, which represent Kotlin's reflection counterparts to Java's Class, Method, Field, and Constructor. These types allow developers to access information about Kotlin entities in a structured manner. For instance, one can obtain a KClass from an instance or a class name, and then use it to list all its properties or functions.

While powerful, reflection can have performance implications and can break encapsulation. It should be used judiciously and with an understanding of its trade-offs. KotlinReflection aims to make reflection in Kotlin more approachable and maintainable by providing a higher-level abstraction over the underlying JVM reflection mechanisms.