[java] Can I obtain method parameter name using Java reflection?

As @Bozho stated, it is possible to do it if debug information is included during compilation. There's a good answer here...

How to get the parameter names of an object's constructors (reflection)? by @AdamPaynter

...using the ASM library. I put together an example showing how you can achieve your goal.

First of all, start with a pom.xml with these dependencies.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.ow2.asm</groupId>
    <artifactId>asm-all</artifactId>
    <version>5.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>junit</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
    <version>4.12</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Then, this class should do what you want. Just invoke the static method getParameterNames().

import org.objectweb.asm.ClassReader;
import org.objectweb.asm.Type;
import org.objectweb.asm.tree.ClassNode;
import org.objectweb.asm.tree.LocalVariableNode;
import org.objectweb.asm.tree.MethodNode;

public class ArgumentReflection {
    /**
     * Returns a list containing one parameter name for each argument accepted
     * by the given constructor. If the class was compiled with debugging
     * symbols, the parameter names will match those provided in the Java source
     * code. Otherwise, a generic "arg" parameter name is generated ("arg0" for
     * the first argument, "arg1" for the second...).
     * 
     * This method relies on the constructor's class loader to locate the
     * bytecode resource that defined its class.
     * 
     * @param theMethod
     * @return
     * @throws IOException
     */
    public static List<String> getParameterNames(Method theMethod) throws IOException {
        Class<?> declaringClass = theMethod.getDeclaringClass();
        ClassLoader declaringClassLoader = declaringClass.getClassLoader();

        Type declaringType = Type.getType(declaringClass);
        String constructorDescriptor = Type.getMethodDescriptor(theMethod);
        String url = declaringType.getInternalName() + ".class";

        InputStream classFileInputStream = declaringClassLoader.getResourceAsStream(url);
        if (classFileInputStream == null) {
            throw new IllegalArgumentException(
                    "The constructor's class loader cannot find the bytecode that defined the constructor's class (URL: "
                            + url + ")");
        }

        ClassNode classNode;
        try {
            classNode = new ClassNode();
            ClassReader classReader = new ClassReader(classFileInputStream);
            classReader.accept(classNode, 0);
        } finally {
            classFileInputStream.close();
        }

        @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
        List<MethodNode> methods = classNode.methods;
        for (MethodNode method : methods) {
            if (method.name.equals(theMethod.getName()) && method.desc.equals(constructorDescriptor)) {
                Type[] argumentTypes = Type.getArgumentTypes(method.desc);
                List<String> parameterNames = new ArrayList<String>(argumentTypes.length);

                @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
                List<LocalVariableNode> localVariables = method.localVariables;
                for (int i = 1; i <= argumentTypes.length; i++) {
                    // The first local variable actually represents the "this"
                    // object if the method is not static!
                    parameterNames.add(localVariables.get(i).name);
                }

                return parameterNames;
            }
        }

        return null;
    }
}

Here's an example with a unit test.

public class ArgumentReflectionTest {

    @Test
    public void shouldExtractTheNamesOfTheParameters3() throws NoSuchMethodException, SecurityException, IOException {

        List<String> parameterNames = ArgumentReflection
                .getParameterNames(Clazz.class.getMethod("callMe", String.class, String.class));
        assertEquals("firstName", parameterNames.get(0));
        assertEquals("lastName", parameterNames.get(1));
        assertEquals(2, parameterNames.size());

    }

    public static final class Clazz {

        public void callMe(String firstName, String lastName) {
        }

    }
}

You can find the complete example on GitHub

Caveats

• I slightly changed the original solution from @AdamPaynter to make it work for Methods. If I properly understood, his solution works only with constructors.
• This solution does not work with static methods. This is becasue in this case the number of arguments returned by ASM is different, but it something that can be easily fixed.