What is Reflections?

Reflection is a feature in computer programming languages, particularly Java, that allows a program to examine or modify its own structure and behavior at runtime. It enables introspection (examining the properties of types) and manipulation (creating new objects, invoking methods, and getting/setting field values) of classes, interfaces, fields and methods without knowing their names at compile time. Reflection is often used in frameworks, ORM tools, dependency injection, and dynamic proxies to achieve greater flexibility and extensibility, but overuse can lead to performance overhead and increased code complexity.