Class loader

The Java Classloader is a part of the Java Runtime Environment that dynamically loads Java classes into the Java Virtual Machine. Usually classes are only loaded on demand. The Java run time system does not need to know about files and file systems because of classloaders. Delegation is an important concept to understand when learning about classloaders.

A software library is a collection of related object code. In the Java language, libraries are typically packaged in JAR files. Libraries can contain objects of different types. The most important type of object contained in a Jar file is a Java class. A class can be thought of as a named unit of code. The class loader is responsible for locating libraries, reading their contents, and loading the classes contained within the libraries. This loading is typically done "on demand", in that it does not occur until the class is called by the program. A class with a given name can only be loaded once by a given classloader.

Each Java class must be loaded by a class loader. Furthermore, Java programs may make use of external libraries (that is, libraries written and provided by someone other than the author of the program) or they may be composed, at least in part, of a number of libraries.

When the JVM is started, three class loaders are used:

The bootstrap class loader loads the core Java libraries located in the <JAVA_HOME>/jre/lib directory. This class loader, which is part of the core JVM, is written in native code.

The extensions class loader loads the code in the extensions directories (<JAVA_HOME>/jre/lib/ext, or any other directory specified by the java.ext.dirs system property). It is implemented by the sun.misc.Launcher$ExtClassLoader class.

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