KSL: Reflection's orthogonality improvement

[bsrbnd]

Hi,

Just an idea for the "Kitchen Sink Language".
I hope this subject hasn't already been discussed and that I haven't missed
anything in the quite big and complex JLS.
It's said not to think too much if this is a good or bad idea before
submitting it for the KSL, but I hope I've thought enough...;-)
Any comments, ideas or suggestions are welcomed.
No implementation draft has been done until now, but it could be explored
if comments are encouraging...

Thanks in advance,
bsrbnd

Abstract
--------
Reflection is designed to access a class member given its name as a String.
For example:
MyClass.class.getDeclaredField("field") reflects MyClass.field or
MyClass.class.getDeclaredMethod("method") reflects MyClass.method()
But the reciprocal is false, we can't get the "String name" of a class member
given its identifier.
This implies a runtime check of the "String name" and an eventual exception
if the name doesn't match a declared member...
For this reason, we can say that reflection isn't totally orthogonal.

Reciprocity with qualified strings (to be added to JLS 6.5.6.2,15.8,..?)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To avoid occasional exceptions (but not runtime checks) and improve reflection's
orthogonality, I suggest to add the concept of "qualified strings".
For example:
MyClass."field" checks at compile-time that "field" is declared on
MyClass and respects accessibility and visibility rules in a compatible way
defined by reflection's API. This means that all declared member's names
(private, protected, public, static or not) but neither inherited nor synthetic
should be accessible as they are accepted by getDeclaredField() or
getDeclaredMethod().
If all compile-checks pass, this expression gives back the name of the
member as a String.

Grammar update (JLS 15.8)
-------------------------
I suggest to add the following line in "PrimaryNoNewArray" rule of the grammar:

PrimaryNoNewArray:
 TypeName . " Identifier "

A simple databases example using "qualified strings"
----------------------------------------------------
In the following example, "qualified strings" ensure that valid member's names
are used in SQL requests to be correctly used by reflection to store back
the result of the request:

class MyTable {
 public static final String name=MyTable.class.getSimpleName().toLowerCase();
 public Integer id;
 public Integer value;
}
MyTable line = new MyTable();

String request =
"SELECT " + MyTable."value" + " FROM " + MyTable.name +
" WHERE " + MyTable."id" + "=" + line.id

String valueColumn = resultset.getMetaData().getColumnName(1);
Field f = MyTable.class.getDeclaredField(valueColumn.toLowerCase());
f.set(line, resultSet.getInt(valueColumn));

Conclusion
----------
The usefulness of "qualified strings" isn't limited to this simple
database example.
It extends to every context where it is necessary to get informations
from external parties and store back results dynamically in objects
through reflection.