Load jar dynamically at runtime?

Indeed this is occasionally necessary. This is how I do this in production. It uses reflection to circumvent the encapsulation of addURL in the system class loader.

/*
     * Adds the supplied Java Archive library to java.class.path. This is benign
     * if the library is already loaded.
     */
    public static synchronized void loadLibrary(java.io.File jar) throws MyException
    {
        try {
            /*We are using reflection here to circumvent encapsulation; addURL is not public*/
            java.net.URLClassLoader loader = (java.net.URLClassLoader)ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader();
            java.net.URL url = jar.toURI().toURL();
            /*Disallow if already loaded*/
            for (java.net.URL it : java.util.Arrays.asList(loader.getURLs())){
                if (it.equals(url)){
                    return;
                }
            }
            java.lang.reflect.Method method = java.net.URLClassLoader.class.getDeclaredMethod("addURL", new Class[]{java.net.URL.class});
            method.setAccessible(true); /*promote the method to public access*/
            method.invoke(loader, new Object[]{url});
        } catch (final java.lang.NoSuchMethodException | 
            java.lang.IllegalAccessException | 
            java.net.MalformedURLException | 
            java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException e){
            throw new MyException(e);
        }
    }

I needed to load a jar file at runtime for both java 8 and java 9+. Here is the method to do it (using Spring Boot 1.5.2 if it may relate).

public static synchronized void loadLibrary(java.io.File jar) {
    try {            
        java.net.URL url = jar.toURI().toURL();
        java.lang.reflect.Method method = java.net.URLClassLoader.class.getDeclaredMethod("addURL", new Class[]{java.net.URL.class});
        method.setAccessible(true); /*promote the method to public access*/
        method.invoke(Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader(), new Object[]{url});
    } catch (Exception ex) {
        throw new RuntimeException("Cannot load library from jar file '" + jar.getAbsolutePath() + "'. Reason: " + ex.getMessage());
    }
}