Why java.lang.NoSuchMethodError when dynamically load a dex jar? - java

There is a interface IA class in APK file. I create a jar containing IA's implementation MA. The jar has a Global class and B class. The jar is loaded dynamically with Dexclassloader from data directory.
interface IA {
test();
}
class Global {
IA instance; //refer to MA instance.
}
class B {
....
instance.test() ; // throw NoSuchMethodError
....
}
But it's OK to call instance's test method through reflection.
Why? Surely I am not familiar with some principals of Classloader or DexClassloader. Could someone give explanation for me? Thanks

I too got a NoSuchMethod error, after doing some testing I found out that the problem was that the DEX file inside the JAR wasn't named classes.dex as it's supposed to be.
The fact that the app was able to create a new instance of your class doesn't necessarily mean that the DEX was loaded properly, I tested it with an empty JAR (i. e. removed all internal files via 7-ZIP) and was still able to instantiate my class (although I guess it would work only with a default constructor that gets zero parameters).

Related

getSuperClass() throws Exception but getSuperclassName() returns the name of the super class

System.out.println(javaClass.getSuperclassName());
JavaClass javaClass1 = javaClass.getSuperClass();
the first line output the name of the class: RestController
The second line throws Exception:
java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: Exception while looking for class example.RestController: java.io.IOException: Couldn't find: example/RestController.class
So, you're using The Byte Code Engineering Library (Apache Commons BCEL™) to load classes from a Jar file (by filename) and want to print the entire call graph with the following github project.
This works just fine, until you want to ask for the superclass of a class that was found in your jar file.
So bcel will load a .class file, and store all it can read from the class file in a JavaClass model. This is for example the name, some flags, the super class name, the declared methods etc.
For example inspect the following java code;
JavaClass stringClass = Repository.lookupClass("java.lang.String");
System.out.println(stringClass);
with output:
public final class java.lang.String extends java.lang.Object
implements java.io.Serializable, java.lang.Comparable, java.lang.CharSequence
file name java.lang.String
compiled from String.java
compiler version 52.0
access flags 49
constant pool 540 entries
ACC_SUPER flag true
Attribute(s):
SourceFile: String.java
etc...
So bcel knows that the superclass is java.lang.Object, but it has not loaded any of the classes at this point! For JRE classes this is of course moot, but for the classes from your Jar file this is a problem.
Because org.apache.bcel.classfile.JavaClass#getSuperclassName will just return the String value that it found as the super class in the .class file. Again this class was not loaded, so the Repository doesn't know about it.
When you then ask for the org.apache.bcel.classfile.JavaClass#getSuperClass, it will try to find it like so:
public JavaClass getSuperClass() throws ClassNotFoundException {
return "java.lang.Object".equals(this.getClassName()) ? null : this.repository.loadClass(this.getSuperclassName());
}
Bcel will try to load it from its Respository, and if the class is unknown, it will delegate the loading to the current ClassPath. Since you're just inputting a File pointing to a Jar, this will fail with the ClassNotFoundException.
There are two ways to you can solve this:
Put the jar file(s) on your classpath; for example via Including all the jars in a directory within the Java classpath
First load all the jar files into the Repository of bcel, so that it knows these classes exist. If we stay in the JCallGraph example from github, that would look something like this:
// ... JCallGraph code from Github above this point
try (JarFile jar = new JarFile(f)) {
// extra stream over jar entries
Stream<JarEntry> jarEntryStream = enumerationAsStream(jar.entries());
jarEntryStream.filter(jarEntry -> jarEntry.getName().endsWith(".class"))
.forEach(jarEntry -> {
ClassParser cp = new ClassParser(jarFileName, jarEntry.getName());
try {
// here we tell BCEL this class exists
Repository.addClass(cp.parse());
} catch (IOException ex) {
throw new RuntimeException(ex);
}
});
// ... back to the JCallGraph code from Github
Stream<JarEntry> entries = enumerationAsStream(jar.entries());
Note that if you have multiple jar files, or super classes coming from external dependencies, these all need to be on the classpath (1) or loaded in bcel first (2) before you can load the superclass.

Java, Load classes from JAR to use them later

I have a problem loading class from JAR file.
I can load them with URLClassLoader using a JarFile etc etc like in this answer; but if later in code I try to instantiate them with reflection:
Object obj = Class.forName(className).newInstance()
I get a ClassNotFoundException.
Can I dinamically load a class to use them later, when I need them, just like classes in ClassPath?
Thank you!
You need to provide class loader to Class.forName method - as otherwise it will look in this same class loader as your class is in.
Object obj = Class.forName("name", true, loader).newInstance() .
But you can't just load a class and then use it in your code like MyLoadedType - as here java does not know where to look for that class, unless you will ensure that your code and loaded code is in this same class loader - you can do this by running all your code from custom class loader that allows for adding new sources in runtime. (URLClassLoader allows for this but method is protected - so you need to extend it and make it public, in java 8 system class loader is also URLClassLoader - but this was changed in java 9) .
But you can operate on that code using reflections like I showed you.

Using Class.forName() in Java Instrumentation Agent

What I understand is that if I use:
Instrumentation#getAllLoadedClasses()
I do get a selection of all loaded classes by the target JVM. But If I do:
Class.forName("my.class.name")
This will not be the same class as the class loaded by VM. Yes, I can add this particular class as a jar in the agent MANIFEST.MF Class-Path - but that does not look the same to me as getAllLoadedClasses().
Could someone please confirm whether this is correct i.e. I would not be able to find a specific class using Class.forName() when instrumenting? My objective was not to iterate over all loaded classes using getAllLoadedClasses() - But if there is no alternative, I guess that's okay for now.
** UPDATE
What I made a mistake in writing is the Boot-Class-Path which I have now corrected in my manifest. Using -verbose:class logging I managed to see that my jars are being loaded as
[Opened C:\fullpath\someother.jar]
[Opened C:\fullpath\another.jar]
[Opened C:\fullpath\different.jar]
But I don't see any corresponding loading information. I tried adding a Class.forName("a.package.in.someother.jar.classname") and got NoClassDefFoundError. As soon as I jump into the agent jar, I cannot use Class.forName() to check if the class is loaded by the target VM. I am getting a NoClassDefFoundError.
FURTHER UPDATE
Okay I have "Fattened" the manifest to look up all classes in my WEB-INF/lib and tomcat's lib directory. What I can see is below:
1) When my custom class MyClass is loaded for the first time. -verbose shows:
[Loaded my.pkg.MyClass from file:/C:/base/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib/mypkg.jar]
2) If I try to load the class again, it is correctly showing the above order.
3) My agent jar is manifested with all classes for my tomcat lib and my web-inf/lib directory. And I can also confirm that the loader sees the jars correctly.
4) Now I inject the agent, and call Class.forName("my.pkg.MyClass") from within the agent class. I get the below results.
[Loaded my.pkg.MyClass from file:/C:/base/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib/mypkg.jar]
I acknowledge that it's system class loader loding it inside my agent code as #RafaelWinterhalter pointed out in one of his answers. Is there any way I can force a "Delegation" so that the a different classloader loads the agent class and therefore, correctly redefines a class.
Any help is appreciated.
As it is stated in the javadoc:
Invoking this method is equivalent to:
Class.forName(className, true, currentLoader)
where currentLoader denotes the defining class loader of
the current class.
You can also see from the source code that the method is marked #CallerSensitive which means that you get a different result based on the class loader that invokes the method.
When calling Instrumentation::getAllLoadedClasses, the returned array contains classes of any class loader and not only of the current class loader which is the system class loader when running a Java agent. Therefore:
for (Class<?> type : instrumentation.getAllLoadedClasses()) {
assert type == Class.forName(type.getName());
}
is not generally true.
After a bit of run around, and Thanks to #Holger who reminded me what the problem was - incorrect class loader.
before I inject the agent, I have done the following:
// Get the current context class loader, which is app ext. classLoader
ClassLoader original = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getSystemClassLoader();
// Set the system classloader to app classloader which won't delegate anything
Field scl = ClassLoader.class.getDeclaredFields();
scl.setAccessible(true);
scl.set(null, Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader());
// Now inject agent
try {
vm.loadAgent(agentPath, args);
} catch (all sorts of errors/exceptions in chain) {
// Log them and throw them back up the stack.
} finally {
vm.detach();
// Put back the classLoader linkage
sc.set(null, original);
}
How I have confirmed
When it goes in my Agent Class - Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader() becomes my application extn loader. But the system classloader now becomes `ParallelWebappClassLoader".
I am assuming this is how it works, but could be totally worng:
i) When I say Class.forName("my.pkg") it will check the system class loader which is pointing to my loader now. If the class is not found (i.e. not loaded), it will go to parents etc. I believe this is more or less the delegation model is.
ii) In this way, the class is loaded in VM by the same class loader which would also load the class in my webapp under normal circumstances.
iii) I will not instrument anything else apart from my own classes so the classloader will always be the same.
So far I have not seen any LinkageError happening. But I still feel this is too risky and if I break the link I am screwed.
Using Class.forName in a java profiler must be avoided to escape from the NoClassDef error. JVM Loads the class files in the different level of class loaders based on their classpath setting and the class file demand.
Java Cre libraries + Boot path defended libraries will be loaded in bootstrap Level
Java Agent will be loaded in system level and it goes on. Class.forName() will look the class files from the parent loaders, the current loader will not check the child loader (Until unless we implement our own loaders)
Java core classes will be accessible from your application code but our application code will not be accessible by the Java core classes. Its called class loader hierarchy.
You have three options.
Lookup the class files from the Instrumentation.GetLoadedClassFiles()
Through Transformers you can get all the loaders classes and you can track them and look for your class in every loader until you find.
Have the Class.forname implementation in the lowest level of the hierarchy so that it can internally access all the path.
Maintain the hierarchy properly to avoid too many weird errors.
Assuming you are looking for the Class<?> in order to re-transform a class, it seems to me that you could save the ClassLoader passed to your transformer, and later use ClassLoader.loadClass(String). Something like:
class MyTransformer implements ClassFileTransformer {
Map<String, ClassLoader> _name2loader = new ...;
...
public byte[] transform(ClassLoader loader, String className,
Class<?> classBeingRedefined,
ProtectionDomain pd,
byte[] classfileBuffer) throws ... {
...
_name2loader.put(className.replace("/","."), classLoader);
...
}
...
Class<?> getClass(String name) throws ClassNotFoundException {
ClassLoader cl = _name2loader.get(name);
if (cl == null) {
throw ClassNotFoundException("No loader for class " + name);
}
return cl.loadClass(name);
}
}
Note that the className passed to transform uses slashes, not dots... A better alternative than the String.replace may be to actually read the class name from the classfileBuffer using your bytecode library (such as javaassist or ASM, but if you're transforming bytecode, you're likely already using such a library).
Note: I'm not sure if you'd see the same class being passed for transformation with different ClassLoaders, but it would be good to look out for that (or research it).

How to keep a jar file external but still use its classes in my Android project?

I need to have a jar file located in a main/assets directory within an Android project. It is important the jar file is located there.
With my main Android project is there a way to reference this jar file in my code and to use its classes?
To be clear I don't want to add the jar to the main project once compiled.
EDIT: I have tried the link below and it seems to load the Class file I've stated. But I'm strugging how to define constructor arguments for the dynamically loaded Class.
android-custom-class-loading-sample
EDIT2
Nearly there. I've confirmed the class is loaded from my classes.jar. I'm stuck instantiating it though.
On the licenseValidatorClazz.getConstructor line I get the error below. I'm guessing I'm missing something from my Interface file?
java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: [interface com.google.android.vending.licensing.Policy, interface com.google.android.vending.licensing.DeviceLimiter, interface com.google.android.vending.licensing.LicenseCheckerCallback, int, class java.lang.String, class java.lang.String]
public Class licenseValidatorClazz = null;
public LicenseValidator validator;
...
// Initialize the class loader with the secondary dex file.
DexClassLoader cl = new DexClassLoader(dexInternalStoragePath.getAbsolutePath(),
optimizedDexOutputPath.getAbsolutePath(),
null,
mContext.getClassLoader());
try {
// Load the library class from the class loader.
licenseValidatorClazz = cl.loadClass("com.google.android.vending.licensing.LicenseValidator");
validator = (LicenseValidator) licenseValidatorClazz.getConstructor(Policy.class,DeviceLimiter.class,LicenseCheckerCallback.class,int.class,String.class,String.class).newInstance(ddd, new NullDeviceLimiter(),
callback, generateNonce(), mPackageName, mVersionCode);
} catch (Exception exception) {
// Handle exception gracefully here.
exception.printStackTrace();
}
I have an Interface which contains the functions to pass to the loaded class.
public interface LicenseValidator
{
public LicenseCheckerCallback getCallback();
public int getNonce();
public String getPackageName();
public void verify(PublicKey publicKey, int responseCode, String signedData, String signature);
public void handleResponse(int response, ResponseData rawData);
public void handleApplicationError(int code);
public void handleInvalidResponse();
}
TO use an external jar to be associated with your application and use it during runtime, it needs to be in dalvik format since normal jars cannot work under dalvikVM.
Convert your files using the dx tool
using aapt cmd , add those classes.dex to your jar file.
Now this jar which contains files in dalvik format can be loaded into our project.
Here is a post which explains the procedure to accomplish it.
There are steps to accomplish this.
You have to make a copy of your JAR file into the private internal storage of your aplication.
Using the dx tool inside the android folder, you have to generate a classes.dex file associated with the JAR file. The dx tool will be at the location /android-sdks/build-tools/19.0.1 (this file is needed by the Dalvik VM, simply jar can not be read by the dalvik VM))
Using the aapt tool command which is also inside the same location, you have to add the classes.dex to the JAR file.
This JAR file could be loaded dynamically using DexClassLoader.
If you are making a JAR from any one your own library, you have to do this steps (1-4) every time when there is a change in your library source code. So you can automate this steps by creating a shell script(in Mac/Linux/Ubuntu) or batch scripts(in Windows). You can refere this link to understand how to write shell scripts.
Note : One situation for implementing this method is, when it is impossible to add the JAR files directly to the build path of core project and need to be loaded dynamically at run time. In normal cases the JAR files could be added to the build path.
please check this link for the detailed code and implementation.
How to load a jar file at runtime
Android: How to dynamically load classes from a JAR file?
Hope this helps!!
You should try out the Services API - java.util.ServiceLoader
You define a service interface and its implementations in your jar.
package com.my.project;
public interface MyService { ... }
public class MyServiceBarImpl implements MyService { ... }
public class MyServiceFooImpl implements MyService { ... }
Then you define the services contained within the jar file in the META-INF/services/ directory. For instance, in the file 'META-INF/services/com.my.project.MyService', you list the provider classes.
# Known MyService providers.
com.my.project.MyServiceBarImpl # The original implementation for handling "bar"s.
com.my.project.MyServiceFooImpl # A later implementation for "foo"s.
Then, in your main codebase, you can instantiate a MyService instance with the ServiceLoader:
for (MyService service : ServiceLoader.load(MyService.class)) {
//Perform some test to determine which is the right MyServiceImpl
//and then do something with the MyService instance
}
These examples are taken more-or-less straight from the API, although I've changed the package names to make them slightly less annoying to read.

How to implemented to a shared interface pulled from a WAR

I have a web service we'll call service.war. It implements an interface we'll call ServicePluginInterface. During the startup of service.war, it reads in environment variables and uses them to search for a jar (MyPlugin.jar). When it finds that jar, it then uses a second environment variable to load the plugin within the jar. The class that it loads looks like this:
public class MyPlugin implements ServicePluginInterface {...}
The servlet attempts to load the plugin using code like:
try {
if (pluginClass == null) {
plugin = null;
}
else {
ZipClassLoader zipLoader = new ZipClassLoader(Main.class.getClassLoader(), pluginJar);
plugin = (ServicePluginInterface)zipLoader.loadClass(pluginClass).newInstance();
plugin.getAccount(null,null);
}
} catch (Exception e) {
...
}
The trick is that I don't have source or a jar for ServicePluginInterface. Not wanting to give up so easily, I pulled the class files out of the service.war files. By using those class files as dependencies, I was able to build, without compiler warnings, MyPlugin. However, when actually executed by Tomcat, the section of code above generates a runtime exception:
java.lang.ClassCastException: com.whatever.MyPlugin cannot be cast to com.whomever.ServicePluginInterface
As a second point of reference, I am also able to construct a synthetic class loader (separate java executable that uses the same class loading mechanism. Again, since I do not have the original source to ServicePluginInterface, I used the class files from the WAR. This second, synthetic loader, or faux-servlet if you will, CAN load MyPlugin just fine. So I would postulate that the Tomcat JVM seems to be detecting some sort of difference between the classes found inside the WAR, and extracted class files. However, since all I did to extract the class files was to open the WAR as a zip and copy them out, it is hard to imagine what that might be.
Javier made a helpful suggestion about removing the definition of ServicePluginInterface, the problem with that solution was that the ZipClassLoader that the servlet uses to load the plugin out of the jar overrides the ClassLoader findClass function to pull the class out of the JAR like so:
protected Class<?> findClass(String name) throws ClassNotFoundException
{
ZipEntry entry = this.myFile.getEntry(name.replace('.', '/') + ".class");
if (entry == null) {
throw new ClassNotFoundException(name);
}
...
}
The class ZipClassLoader then recursively loads all parent objects and interfaces from the jar. This means that if the plugin jar does not contain the definition for ServicePluginInterface, it will fail.
Classes defined by different class loaders are different:
At run time, several reference types with the same binary name may be
loaded simultaneously by different class loaders. These types may or
may not represent the same type declaration. Even if two such types do
represent the same type declaration, they are considered distinct. JLS
In that case zipLoader returns an instance of MyPlugin that implements the other ServicePluginInterface (is it loaded from the zip too?):
(ServicePluginInterface)zipLoader.loadClass(pluginClass).newInstance();
It seems that the application server already has a definition of ServicePluginInterface, then you don't need to redeploy it. It should be enough to add the required files (ServicePluginInterface, etc.) as non-deployed dependecies of your project.
Another approach goes by living with the fact, and accessing methods in ServicePluginInterface via reflection (use the Class object returned by zipLoader, instead of ServicePluginInterface.class).

Categories

Resources