Java in a Nutshell, 5th Edition

Name

AnnotatedElement

Synopsis

This interface is implemented by the classes representing program elements that can be annotated in Java 5.0: java.lang.Class, java.lang.Package, Method, Constructor, and Field. The methods of this interface allow you to test for the presence of a specific annotation, query an annotation object of a specific type, or query all annotations present on an annotated element. getDeclaredAnnotations( ) differs from getAnnotations( ) in that it does not include inherited annotations. (See the java.lang.annotation.Inherited meta-annotation.) If no annotations are present, getAnnotations( ) and getDeclaredAnnotations( ) return an array of length zero rather than null. It is safe to modify the arrays returned by these methods.

See also the getParameterAnnotations( ) methods of Method and Constructor, which provide access to annotations on method parameters.

public interface AnnotatedElement {
// Public Instance Methods
     <T extends java.lang.annotation.Annotation> T getAnnotation(Class<T> annotationType);  
     java.lang.annotation.Annotation[ ] getAnnotations( );  
     java.lang.annotation.Annotation[ ] getDeclaredAnnotations( );  
     boolean isAnnotationPresent(Class<? extends java.lang.annotation.Annotation> 
     annotationType);  
}

Implementations

Class, Package, AccessibleObject