What's the difference between Name and CanonicalName?

Question

What is the difference between Java's Class.getName() and Class.getCanonicalName()?

Answer 1

Consider the following program:

package org.test.stackoverflow;

public class CanonicalName {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    CanonicalName cn = new CanonicalName();
    cn.printClassNames();
  }

  private Anonymous anony;
  private MyAnony myAnony;

  public CanonicalName() {
    anony = new Anonymous() {
      public void printInterface() {
        System.out.println("Anony Name: " + getClass().getName());
        System.out.println("Anony CanonicalName: " + getClass().getCanonicalName());
      }
    };
    myAnony = new MyAnony();
  }

  public void printClassNames() {
    System.out.println("CanonicalName, Name: " + getClass().getName());
    System.out.println("CanonicalName, CanonicalName: " + getClass().getCanonicalName());
    anony.printInterface();
    myAnony.printInterface();
  }

  private static interface Anonymous {
    public void printInterface();
  }

  private static class MyAnony implements Anonymous {
    public void printInterface() {
      System.out.println("MyAnony Name: " + getClass().getName());
      System.out.println("MyAnony CanonicalName: " + getClass().getCanonicalName());
    }
  }
}

Output:

CanonicalName, Name: org.test.stackoverflow.CanonicalName
CanonicalName, CanonicalName: org.test.stackoverflow.CanonicalName
Anony Name: org.test.stackoverflow.CanonicalName$1
Anony CanonicalName: null
MyAnony Name: org.test.stackoverflow.CanonicalName$MyAnony
MyAnony CanonicalName: org.test.stackoverflow.CanonicalName.MyAnony

So it seems that for base classes, they return the same thing. For inner classes, getName() uses the $ naming convention (i.e. what is used for .class files), and getCanonicalName() returns what you would use if you were trying to instantiate the class. You couldn't do that with a (little-a) anonymous class, so that's why getCanonicalName() returns null.