How to find Superclasses of a given class dynamically using Java Reflection API ?.

Program to demonstrate how to find Superclasses of a given class dynamically using Java Reflection API.

package com.hubberspot.reflection;

// Create Three Java classes such as 
// Animal which extends Object

class Animal 
{

}

//Dog which extends Animal
class Dog extends Animal 
{

}

// GermanShepherd which extends Dog
class GermanShepherd extends Dog
{

}


public class SuperClassFinding {

 public static void main(String[] args) {

  // Get the instance of Class for the type 
  // GermanShepherd
  Class childClass = GermanShepherd.class;

  // Get the instance of Class for the supertype
  // of the class GermanShepherd. The Class instance 
  // for super-class is been found by calling 
  // getSuperclass() method of class Class.
  Class superClass = childClass.getSuperclass();

  // Loops over the hierarchy of classes in examples
  // till reaching the top most class Object
  while(superClass != null)
  {

   // In order to get name of the superclass
   // we call method getName over the Class instance
   // of Superclass
   String className = superClass.getName();

   // Prints over the console
   System.out.println("The Super Class for " + 
     childClass.getName() + " is : \n" + className);

   childClass = superClass;

   superClass = childClass.getSuperclass();

   System.out.println();

  }

 }

}

Output of the program :