Conditional class import/ load

Question

In a Groovy script is it possible to do a conditional import statement?

if (test){
    import this.package.class
} else {
    import that.package.class
}

The background to this is wanting to use something on MacOS 10.5 which only has JDK1.5 so one specific class is unavailable, but I have found someone who has written a back-port for it.

Answer 1

There is no way to conditionally import a class, but you can achieve something similar by attempting to load the class and then load another class if that one is not found.

Here's just an example:

def someClass
try {
    someClass = "org.apache.webdavlib.WebdavFile" as Class
} catch (Exception ex) {
    someClass = "java.io.File" as Class
}

def someInstance = someClass.newInstance("~/project/temp.log")

assert "java.io.File" == someInstance.getClass().getName()