Difference between Loading a class and instantiating it.

[Balaji Prasad]

What do somebody mean when they say "the class gets loaded".
How is it different from instantiating a class(using a new operator)?

[Henry Wong]

Generally, "class loading" refers to loading, and initializing the class definitions.... meaning loading the bytecodes from the class file, creating the Class class, running the static initializers, etc.

Once a class is loaded, and initialized, then it would be possible to instantiate an instance of the class -- ie. create an object of that class type.

Henry

[Balaji Prasad]

Thanks Henry.. but still I have many doubts...(sorry if they are naive )
1.When will class loading happen? Is it wen when the JVM is started?
2.Will it load all the classes in the classpath?
3.How will the import statement affect the class loading?(ie,if I import certain classes,only those classes will be loaded?)

"meaning loading the bytecodes from the class file, creating the Class class, running the static initializers"
Where can I get more details about these process.... can you give some links or suggest some books?
(Thanks in advance for the patience )

[Campbell Ritchie]

I suggest you put some static initialisers in your classes which simply do this

public class Foo
{
   static
   {
      System.out.println("Loading Foo class");
   }// end static initialiser
 . . .

Or look for a profiling tool; there is one which ships with the standard JVM but I have forgotten what it is called.