Java.lang.reflect.Proxy returning another proxy from invocation results in ClassCastException on assignment

Question

So I'm playing with geotools and I thought I'd proxy one of their data-access classes and trace how it was being used in their code.

I coded up a dynamic proxy and wrapped a FeatureSource (interface) in it and off it went happily. Then I wanted to look at some of the transitive objects returned by the featureSource as well, since the main thing a FeatureSource does is return a FeatureCollection (FeatureSource is analogous to a sql DataSource and featurecollection to an sql statement).

in my invocationhandler I just passed the call through to the underlying object, printing out the target class/method/args and result as I went, but for calls that returned a FeatureCollection (another interface), I wrapped that object in my proxy (the same class but a new instance, shouldn't matter should it?) and returned it. BAM! Classcast exception:

java.lang.ClassCastException: $Proxy5 cannot be cast to org.geotools.feature.FeatureCollection  
    at $Proxy4.getFeatures(Unknown Source)  
    at MyClass.myTestMethod(MyClass.java:295)

the calling code:

FeatureSource<SimpleFeatureType, SimpleFeature> featureSource = ... // create the FS
featureSource = (FeatureSource<SimpleFeatureType, SimpleFeature>) FeatureSourceProxy.newInstance(featureSource, features);
featureSource.getBounds();// ok
featureSource.getSupportedHints();// ok

DefaultQuery query1 = new DefaultQuery(DefaultQuery.ALL);
FeatureCollection<SimpleFeatureType, SimpleFeature> results = featureSource.getFeatures(query1); //<- explosion here

the Proxy:

public class FeatureSourceProxy  implements java.lang.reflect.InvocationHandler {

private Object target;
private List<SimpleFeature> features;

public static Object newInstance(Object obj, List<SimpleFeature> features) {
return java.lang.reflect.Proxy.newProxyInstance(
    obj.getClass().getClassLoader(), 
    obj.getClass().getInterfaces(), 
    new FeatureSourceProxy(obj, features)
);
}

private FeatureSourceProxy(Object obj, List<SimpleFeature> features) {
this.target = obj;
this.features = features;
}

public Object invoke(Object proxy, Method m, Object[] args)throws Throwable{
Object result = null;
try {
    if("getFeatures".equals(m.getName())){ 
        result = interceptGetFeatures(m, args);
    }
    else{
        result = m.invoke(target, args);
    }
} 
catch (Exception e) {
    throw new RuntimeException("unexpected invocation exception: " +  e.getMessage(), e);
} 
return result;
}

private Object interceptGetFeatures(Method m, Object[] args) throws Exception{
    return newInstance(m.invoke(target, args), features);
}

}

Is it possible to dynamically return proxies of interfaces from a proxied interface or am I doing something wrong? cheers!

Maurice Perry · Accepted Answer · 2010-04-15 12:39:57Z

10

Class.getInterfaces() returns only the interfaces DIRECTLY implemented by the class. You need a transitive closure to optain all the interfaces.

UPDATE

Example:

private static Class<?>[] getInterfaces(Class<?> c) {
    List<Class<?>> result = new ArrayList<Class<?>>();
    if (c.isInterface()) {
        result.add(c);
    } else {
        do {
            addInterfaces(c, result);
            c = c.getSuperclass();
        } while (c != null);
    }
    for (int i = 0; i < result.size(); ++i) {
        addInterfaces(result.get(i), result);
    }
    return result.toArray(new Class<?>[result.size()]);
}

private static void addInterfaces(Class<?> c, List<Class<?>> list) {
    for (Class<?> intf: c.getInterfaces()) {
        if (!list.contains(intf)) {
            list.add(intf);
        }
    }
}

You may also need to "unwrapp" the proxies that are passed as arguments.

edited Apr 15, 2010 at 12:39

answered Apr 15, 2010 at 6:49

Maurice Perry

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2 Comments

matao Over a year ago

works perfectly!! wow thanks for that, in hindsight it's obvious i should have figured, for some reason I thought that getInterfaces() would return all implemented interfaces, not just the ones directly implemented by the class.

TWiStErRob Over a year ago

any reason to not use a Set?

Jameson · Accepted Answer · 2016-09-16 03:50:23Z

@maurice-perry's solution worked great for me and I have voted for it, but I did also want to point out that there are library implementations of the needed method.

I ended up implementing this solution with the Apache Commons library method ClassUtils.getAllInterfaces():

...
import org.apache.commons.lang3.ClassUtils;
...

private static Class<?>[] getAllInterfaces(Object object) {
    final List<Class<?>> interfaces =
        ClassUtils.getAllInterfaces(object.getClass());

    return interfaces.toArray(new Class<?>[interfaces.size()]);
}

It works great for that magical second argument in newProxyInstance:

Proxy.newProxyInstance(ClassLoader loader, Class<?>[] interfaces, 
                       InvocationHandler h)

There is also a Guava approach using:

final Set<TypeToken> tt = TypeToken.of(cls).getTypes().interfaces();

But then you have to figure out howto convert Set<TypeToken> to Class<?>[]. Trivial perhaps, if you're a Guava buff, but Apache's is ready for use.

Both of these were noted in this related thread, get all (derived) interfaces of a class.

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