Reflection is a constituent of the Java API that lets Java code examine and "reflect" on Java components at runtime and use the reflected members. Classes in the package, along with codice_11 and accommodate applications such as debuggers, interpreters, object inspectors, class browsers, and services such as object serialization and JavaBeans that need access to either the public members of a target object (based on its runtime class) or the members declared by a given class. This package was added in JDK 1.1.