How to explicitly invoke default method from a dynamic Proxy?

I've been troubled by similar issues as well when using MethodHandle.Lookup in JDK 8 - 10, which behave differently. I've blogged about the correct solution here in detail.

This approach works in Java 8

In Java 8, the ideal approach uses a hack that accesses a package-private constructor from Lookup:

import java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles.Lookup;
import java.lang.reflect.Constructor;
import java.lang.reflect.Proxy;

interface Duck {
    default void quack() {
        System.out.println("Quack");
    }
}

public class ProxyDemo {
    public static void main(String[] a) {
        Duck duck = (Duck) Proxy.newProxyInstance(
            Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader(),
            new Class[] { Duck.class },
            (proxy, method, args) -> {
                Constructor<Lookup> constructor = Lookup.class
                    .getDeclaredConstructor(Class.class);
                constructor.setAccessible(true);
                constructor.newInstance(Duck.class)
                    .in(Duck.class)
                    .unreflectSpecial(method, Duck.class)
                    .bindTo(proxy)
                    .invokeWithArguments(args);
                return null;
            }
        );

        duck.quack();
    }
}

This is the only approach that works with both private-accessible and private-inaccessible interfaces. However, the above approach does illegal reflective access to JDK internals, which will no longer work in a future JDK version, or if --illegal-access=deny is specified on the JVM.

This approach works on Java 9 and 10, but not 8

import java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles;
import java.lang.invoke.MethodType;
import java.lang.reflect.Proxy;

interface Duck {
    default void quack() {
        System.out.println("Quack");
    }
}

public class ProxyDemo {
    public static void main(String[] a) {
        Duck duck = (Duck) Proxy.newProxyInstance(
            Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader(),
            new Class[] { Duck.class },
            (proxy, method, args) -> {
                MethodHandles.lookup()
                    .findSpecial( 
                         Duck.class, 
                         "quack",  
                         MethodType.methodType(void.class, new Class[0]),  
                         Duck.class)
                    .bindTo(proxy)
                    .invokeWithArguments(args);
                return null;
            }
        );

        duck.quack();
    }
}

Solution

Simply implement both of the above solutions and check if your code is running on JDK 8 or on a later JDK and you'll be fine. Until you're not :)


If you use a concrete impl class as lookupClass and caller for the invokeSpecial it should correctly invoke the default implementation of the interface (no hack for private access needed):

Example target = new Example();
...

Class targetClass = target.getClass();
return MethodHandles.lookup()
                    .in(targetClass)
                    .unreflectSpecial(method, targetClass)
                    .bindTo(target)
                    .invokeWithArguments();

This of course only works if you have a reference to a concrete object implementing the interface.

Edit: this solution will only work if the class in question (Example in the code above), is private accessible from the caller code, e.g. an anonymous inner class.

The current implementation of the MethodHandles/Lookup class will not allow to call invokeSpecial on any class that is not private accessible from the current caller class. There are various work-arounds available, but all of them require the use of reflection to make constructors/methods accessible, which will probably fail in case a SecurityManager is installed.


In Java 16 (from the documentation, which also has more complex examples):

Object proxy = Proxy.newProxyInstance(loader, new Class[] { A.class },
        (o, m, params) -> {
            if (m.isDefault()) {
                // if it's a default method, invoke it
                return InvocationHandler.invokeDefault(o, m, params);
            }
        });
}