(Quick Reference) # 18.4 Evaluating Conventions Version: 3.2.8 ## 18.4 Evaluating Conventions Before looking at providing runtime configuration based on conventions you first need to understand how to evaluate those conventions from a plugin. Every plugin has an implicit `application` variable which is an instance of the GrailsApplication interface. The `GrailsApplication` interface provides methods to evaluate the conventions within the project and internally stores references to all artifact classes within your application. Artifacts implement the GrailsClass interface, which represents a Grails resource such as a controller or a tag library. For example to get all `GrailsClass` instances you can do:
    for (grailsClass in application.allClasses) {
        println grailsClass.name
    }
`GrailsApplication` has a few "magic" properties to narrow the type of artefact you are interested in. For example to access controllers you can use:
    for (controllerClass in application.controllerClasses) {
        println controllerClass.name
    }
The dynamic method conventions are as follows: `*Classes` - Retrieves all the classes for a particular artefact name. For example `application.controllerClasses`. `get*Class` - Retrieves a named class for a particular artefact. For example `application.getControllerClass("PersonController")` `is*Class` - Returns `true` if the given class is of the given artefact type. For example `application.isControllerClass(PersonController)` The `GrailsClass` interface has a number of useful methods that let you further evaluate and work with the conventions. These include: `getPropertyValue` - Gets the initial value of the given property on the class `hasProperty` - Returns `true` if the class has the specified property `newInstance` - Creates a new instance of this class. `getName` - Returns the logical name of the class in the application without the trailing convention part if applicable `getShortName` - Returns the short name of the class without package prefix `getFullName` - Returns the full name of the class in the application with the trailing convention part and with the package name `getPropertyName` - Returns the name of the class as a property name `getLogicalPropertyName` - Returns the logical property name of the class in the application without the trailing convention part if applicable `getNaturalName` - Returns the name of the property in natural terms (e.g. 'lastName' becomes 'Last Name') `getPackageName` - Returns the package name For a full reference refer to the javadoc API. | Quick Reference (hide)