Replace content of some methods at runtime

Question

I would like to replace the content of some methods at runtime.

I know I can use javassist for this but it does not work because the classes I would like to enhance are already loaded by the system classLoader.

How can I do, to replace the content of a method at runtime ? Should I try to unload the class ? How can I do that ? I saw it was possible but I could not figure out how to do it.

If possible, I would like to avoid using an external lib for this, I would like to code it my-self.

More information: - The class I would like to enhance is contained in a framework (in a jar file) - My code is actually a plugin of this framework - The framework in which my plugin runs has its own classLoader, but this classLoader does not load its own classes (it delegates them to the system class loader) - The framework I'm using is Play.

Thank you for your help !

Answer 1

You can do it with Javaassist, as well as any other bytecode engineering library out there. The magic lies in the Java Attach API, which allows programs to attach to running JVMs (and modify loaded classes).

It can be found in the com.sun.tools.attach package, and as the name implies, is specific to the Oracle JVM. Nonetheless, JDK tools like jstack and jmap use it to support their "attach to running JVM" feature, so it's safe to say it's here to stay.

The docs on the Attach API are fairly descriptive, and this Oracle blog post demonstrates attaching an agent at runtime. In general, it boils down to:

• Make a retransforming program the "regular" -javaagent way, with premain et al
• Rename premain to agentmain
• Create a temporary JAR file containing your agent classes and having a manifest pointing Agent-Class to your agent (agentmain-containing) class, and Can-Retransform-Classes set to true
• Obtain the PID of the target JVM (potentially the same process), and attach the temporary jar to it

Thankfully, the API can do this without much work on your part, though if you are doing the JAR generation at runtime it may be a bit tricky to package all the classes needed by your agent.

I was hoping to include a demo agent demonstrating attaching a profiler at runtime, but it ended up being too lengthy to post. Nonetheless, I've put it up in a Github repo.

A caveat of this approach is that it makes your program dependent on the tools.jar that ships with JDKs, and which is not present in JREs. You can get around this by shipping tools.jar with (or extracted in) your application, but you will still need to provide the attach native library required by the Attach API with your application. I've included the libraries for all platforms I could find in the repository linked above, though you may obtain them by yourself too.

Depending on your usecase, this may or may not be ideal. But it certainly works!

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This isn't clear in the question, but if what you wish to do is completely "hotswap" a class at runtime with your own, you do not need to use any bytecode manipulation library. Instead, you may compile your class separately (ensuring the same package, class name, etc.) and simply return the bytes for your new class when transform is called on your target class.