See: Description
| Interface | Description |
|---|---|
| Opcodes |
The JVM opcodes, access flags and array type codes.
|
| Class | Description |
|---|---|
| AnnotationVisitor |
A visitor to visit a Java annotation.
|
| Attribute |
A non standard class, field, method or Code attribute, as defined in the Java Virtual Machine
Specification (JVMS).
|
| ByteVector |
A dynamically extensible vector of bytes.
|
| ClassReader |
A parser to make a
ClassVisitor visit a ClassFile structure, as defined in the Java
Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS). |
| ClassVisitor |
A visitor to visit a Java class.
|
| ClassWriter |
A
ClassVisitor that generates a corresponding ClassFile structure, as defined in the Java
Virtual Machine Specification (JVMS). |
| ConstantDynamic |
A constant whose value is computed at runtime, with a bootstrap method.
|
| FieldVisitor |
A visitor to visit a Java field.
|
| Handle |
A reference to a field or a method.
|
| Label |
A position in the bytecode of a method.
|
| MethodVisitor |
A visitor to visit a Java method.
|
| ModuleVisitor |
A visitor to visit a Java module.
|
| Type |
A Java field or method type.
|
| TypePath |
The path to a type argument, wildcard bound, array element type, or static inner type within an
enclosing type.
|
| TypeReference |
A reference to a type appearing in a class, field or method declaration, or on an instruction.
|
| Exception | Description |
|---|---|
| ClassTooLargeException |
Exception thrown when the constant pool of a class produced by a
ClassWriter is too
large. |
| MethodTooLargeException |
Exception thrown when the Code attribute of a method produced by a
ClassWriter is too
large. |
The ASM framework is organized
around the ClassVisitor,
FieldVisitor,
MethodVisitor and
AnnotationVisitor abstract classes,
which allow one to visit the fields, methods and annotations of a class,
including the bytecode instructions of each method.
In addition to these main abstract classes, ASM provides a ClassReader class, that can parse an
existing class and make a given visitor visit it. ASM also provides
a ClassWriter class, which is
a visitor that generates Java class files.
In order to generate a class from scratch, only the ClassWriter class is necessary. Indeed,
in order to generate a class, one must just call its visitXxx
methods with the appropriate arguments to generate the desired fields
and methods.
In order to modify existing classes, one must use a ClassReader class to analyze
the original class, a class modifier, and a ClassWriter to construct the modified class. The class modifier
is just a ClassVisitor
that delegates most of the work to another ClassVisitor, but that sometimes changes some parameter values,
or call additional methods, in order to implement the desired
modification process. In order to make it easier to implement such
class modifiers, the ClassVisitor and MethodVisitor
classes delegate by default all the method calls they receive to an
optional visitor.