Richard Ross

This article details the implementation of a tool called the Command Processor. This tool takes a Java object and creates a command-line interface to its public methods. These public methods are essentially your Application Programming Interface (API). During the course of this article we'll get a good look at the java.lang.reflect package and a chance to kick the tires on the Regular Expression package included in the 1.4 JDK. I often find myself with fresh code and no convenient way to try it out. The GUI is not ready or there is no requirement for one. Even writing the argument processing for a main function is often far more work than it's worth. I want to be able to work with my code without modifying the API or writing a throwaway UI. In the long run, all the solutions I've tried were either too much work or required significant modifications to the class. Si... (more)