Java Projects - Second Edition

Annotation inheritance

Annotations, just like methods or fields, can be inherited between class hierarchies. If an annotation declaration is marked with @Inherited, then a class that extends another class with this annotation can inherit it. The annotation can be overridden in case the child class has the annotation. Because there is no multiple inheritance in Java, annotations on interfaces cannot be inherited. Even when the annotation is inherited, the application code that retrieves the annotation of a certain element can distinguish between the annotations that are inherited and those that are declared on the entity itself. There are methods to get the annotations and separate methods to get the declared annotations that are declared ...