Class Package Scanning

Stack Overflow article HERE
Spring HERE
Spring again HERE

In the end I wrote the following:

public class FileSystemBasedClassFinder {

    public List<Class<?>> findClasses(File dir, String packageName) {
        String path = FdbAnnotationHelper.LocalUtil.makePathFromClassName(packageName);
        File pDir = new File(dir,path);
        FilenameFilter filter = new FilenameFilter() {
            
            @Override
            public boolean accept(File dir, String name) {
                return name.endsWith(".class");
            }
        };
        File[] files = pDir.listFiles(filter);
        List<Class<?>> classList = new ArrayList<Class<?>>();
        for (File file : files) {
            String f = file.getAbsolutePath().substring(dir.getAbsolutePath().length()+1);
            String className = LocalUtil.makeClassNameFromPath(f);
            try {
                Class<?> c =Class.forName(className);
                classList.add(c);
            } catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        return classList;
    }

To use it:

File dir = new File("target/classes"); // file system directory
List<Class<?>> classList = new FileSystemBasedClassFinder().findClasses(dir,"com.jgk.somepackage");

LocalUtil:

static class LocalUtil {
        static String makePathFromClassName(String c) {
            String pathName = c.replaceAll("\.", "/");
            //System.out.println(c+" vs. "+pathName);
            return pathName;
        }

        static String makePathFromClass(Class<?> clazz) {
            String c = clazz.getName();
            return makePathFromClassName(c);
        }

        public static String makeClassNameFromPath(String path) {
            if(path.endsWith(".class")) {
                path = path.substring(0,path.lastIndexOf(".class"));
            }
            path=path.replaceAll("\/", ".");
            return path;
        }
        
    }