Java ClassLoaders

Java ClassLoaders (loads class files in Java)

Java code is compiled into a class file by compiler and JVM executes the compiled code.
ClassLoader is a class in Java ie used to load these class files.

Java class loaders can be broadly classified into below categories.

Bootstrap Class Loader

Bootstrap class loader loads java core classes like java.lang, java.util etc.
These are classes that are part of java runtime environment.
Bootstrap class loader is native implementation and so they may differ across different JVMs.

Extensions Class Loader

JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/ext contains jar packages that are extensions of standard core java classes.
Extensions class loader loads classes from this ext folder.
Using the system environment property java.ext.dirs you can add ext folders and jar files to be loaded using extensions class loader.

System Class Loader

Java classes that are available in the java classpath are loaded using System class loader.
You can see more class loaders like java.net.URLClassLoader, java.security.SecureClassLoader etc.
Those are all extended from java.lang.ClassLoader.

These class loaders have a hierarchical relationship among them. Class loader can load classes from one level above its hierarchy.

• First level is bootstrap class loader.
• Second level is extensions class loader.
• Third level is system class loader.