Core Java for the Impatient, 3rd Edition

Chapter 11

Annotations

Topics in This Chapter

• 11.1 Using Annotations

• 11.2 Defining Annotations

• 11.3 Standard Annotations

• 11.4 Processing Annotations at Runtime

• 11.5 Source-Level Annotation Processing

• Exercises

Annotations are tags that you insert into your source code so that some tool can process them. The tools can operate on the source level, or they can process class files into which the compiler has placed annotations.

Annotations do not change the way your programs are compiled. The Java compiler generates the same virtual machine instructions with or without the annotations.

To benefit from annotations, you need to select a processing tool and use annotations that your processing tool understands, before you can apply that tool to ...