The class type dynamically assigned to the variable

Vankuisher :

I'm wrapping an Axis web service in a Springboot microservice and stumbled on some code that does not make sense.

Class cls = AmountInfo[].class;

What class is returned above ?

ernest_k :

Here's what the docs of java.lang.Class have to say about this:

Every array also belongs to a class that is reflected as a Class object that is shared by all arrays with the same element type and number of dimensions.

Just as the a Class object for the type AmountInfo, there is a Class for the array 1D array type AmountInfo[], just as there is also a type for the 2D array type AmountInfo[][], etc.

A Class of an array type returns true when isArray() is invoked on it. AmountInfo[].class is equivalent to AmountInfo.class.arrayType(). And you can use it with the reflection API the same way you can use a normal class (example below):

//Creating a 1D array of AmountInfo type
jshell> Array.newInstance(AmountInfo.class, 2)
$65 ==> AmountInfo[2] { null, null }

// Creating a 2D array of AmountInfo type
jshell> Array.newInstance(AmountInfo[].class, 2)
$66 ==> AmountInfo[2][] { null, null }