Java Coding Problems

158. Reflecting annotations

Java annotations have got a lot of attention from the Java Reflection API. Let's see several solutions for inspecting several kinds of annotations (for example, package, class, and method).

Mainly, all major Reflection API classes that represent artifacts that support annotation (for example, Package, Constructor, Class, Method, and Field) reveal a set of common methods for working with annotations. Common methods include:

• getAnnotations(): Return all annotations specific to a certain artifact
• getDeclaredAnnotations(): Return all annotations declared directly to a certain artifact
• getAnnotation(): Return an annotation by type
• getDeclaredAnnotation(): Return an annotation by type declared directly to a certain ...