Java annotations
A java annotation in any language is a form of syntactic metadata that can be added to the java source code.
There are following types of annotations in Java -
Annotations applied to Java code:
- @Override - Checks that the method is an override. Causes a compile error if the method is not found in one of the parent classes or implemented interfaces.
- @Deprecated - Marks the method as obsolete. Causes a compile warning if the method is used.
- @SuppressWarnings - Instructs the compiler to suppress the compile time warnings specified in the annotation parameters.
- @SafeVarargs - Suppress warnings for all callers of a method or constructor with a generics varargs parameter, since Java 7.
- @FunctionalInterface - Specifies that the type declaration is intended to be a functional interface, since Java 8.
Annotations applied to other annotations:
- @Retention - Specifies how the marked annotation is stored—Whether in code only, compiled into the class, or available at runtime through reflection.
- @Documented - Marks another annotation for inclusion in the documentation.
- @Target - Marks another annotation to restrict what kind of Java elements the annotation may be applied to.
- @Inherited - Marks another annotation to be inherited to subclasses of annotated class (by default annotations are not inherited to subclasses).
- @Repeatable - Specifies that the annotation can be applied more than once to the same declaration.
