What is the purpose of the Reflection API in programming?

The Reflection API in programming allows for dynamically exploring and modifying the structure of program objects at runtime. In PHP, Reflection can be used to obtain information about classes, methods, properties, function parameters, and even create objects or invoke methods without prior knowledge of their structure at compile time.

This is useful for creating universal tools, such as frameworks, ORM, testing systems, where working with code flexibly and dynamically is necessary.

Example of using Reflection in PHP:

$reflection = new ReflectionClass('DateTime');
$methods = $reflection->getMethods();
foreach ($methods as $method) {
    echo $method->getName() . "\n";
}

This code will output a list of all methods of the DateTime class.