Subject: Java Annotation
Author: EricJ
Posted on: 11/30/2010 07:09:17 PM
An annotation, in the Java computer programming language, is a special form of syntactic metadata that can be added to Java source code. Classes, methods, variables, parameters and packages may be annotated. Unlike Javadoc tags, Java annotations can be reflective in that they can be embedded in class files generated by the compiler and may be retained by the Java VM to be made retrievable at run-time.
The Java platform has had various ad-hoc annotation mechanisms—for example, the transient modifier, or the @deprecated javadoc tag. The general purpose annotation (also known as metadata) facility was introduced to the Java Community Process as JSR-175 in 2002 and approved in September 2004. Annotations became available in the language itself beginning with version 1.5 of the JDK. A provisional interface for compile-time annotation processing was provided by the apt tool in JDK version 1.5, and was formalized through JSR-269 and integrated into the javac compiler in version 1.6
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