Java – how to load different versions of the same class?

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You’re going the right way. You must take some things into account.

The normal thing is classes that exist in parent classloaders are used. So if you want two versions those classes must not be there.

But if you want to interact you can use reflection, or even better a common interface. So I’ll do this:

common.jar:
BaseInterface

v1.jar:
SomeImplementation implements BaseInterface

v2.jar:
OtherImplementation implements BaseInterface

command-line:
java -classpath common.jar YourMainClass
// you don't put v1 nor v2 into the parent classloader classpath

Then in your program:

loader1 = new URLClassLoader(new URL[] {new File("v1.jar").toURL()}, Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader());
loader2 = new URLClassLoader(new URL[] {new File("v2.jar").toURL()}, Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader());

Class<?> c1 = loader1.loadClass("com.abc.Hello");
Class<?> c2 = loader2.loadClass("com.abc.Hello");

BaseInterface i1 = (BaseInterface) c1.newInstance();
BaseInterface i2 = (BaseInterface) c2.newInstance();

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