Java annotation

In the Java computer programming language, an annotation is a form of syntactic metadata that can be added to Java source code.[1] Classes, methods, variables, parameters and Java packages may be annotated. Like Javadoc tags, Java annotations can be read from source files. Unlike Javadoc tags, Java annotations can also be embedded in and read from Java class files generated by the Java compiler. This allows annotations to be retained by the Java virtual machine at run-time and read via reflection.[2] It is possible to create meta-annotations out of the existing ones in Java.[3]

  1. ^ "Annotations". Sun Microsystems. Archived from the original on 2011-09-25. Retrieved 2011-09-30..
  2. ^ Sun Microsystems (2005). Java(TM) Language Specification (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-321-24678-0..
  3. ^ Dare Obasanjo (2007). "A COMPARISON OF MICROSOFT'S C# PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE TO SUN MICROSYSTEMS' JAVA PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE: Metadata Annotations". Dare Obasanjo. Archived from the original on 2012-09-19. Retrieved 2012-09-20.