Inside Java™ 2 Platform Security: Architecture, API Design, and Implementation, Second Edition

4.4. Loading Classes

The following ClassLoader methods relate to class loading:

public Class loadClass(String name)
protected synchronized Class loadClass(String name,
                                 boolean resolve)
protected native final Class findLoadedClass(String name)
protected Class findClass(String name)
protected final void resolveClass(Class c)

The loadClass methods, called by the Java virtual machine to load classes, take a class name as argument and return a Class object. The loading process involves finding the binary form of the class—typically by retrieving the binary representation previously created by compiling the source code for the class—and then “defining” the class, that is, constructing from that binary form a Class object that represents the class. ...