Why is it not possible to extend annotations in Java?

Question

I don't understand why there is no inheritance in Java annotations, just as Java classes. I think it would be very useful.

For example: I want to know if a given annotation is a validator. With inheritance, I could reflexively navigate through superclasses to know if this annotation extends a ValidatorAnnotation. Otherwise, how can I achieve this?

So, can anyone give me a reason for this design decision?

Gainor

Note, BTW, that all annotations extend java.lang.annotation.Annotation, i.e. any annotation is instanceof it although this fact is not explicitly declared. – Aesthete

Answer 1

About the reason why it wasn't designed that way you can find the answer in the JSR 175 Design FAQ, where it says:

Why don’t you support annotation subtyping (where one annotation type extends another)?

It complicates the annotation type system, and makes it much more difficult to write “Specific Tools”.

…

“Specific Tools” — Programs that query known annotation types of arbitrary external programs. Stub generators, for example, fall into this category. These programs will read annotated classes without loading them into the virtual machine, but will load annotation interfaces.

So, yes I guess, the reason is it just KISS. Anyway, it seems this issue (along with many others) are being looked into as part of JSR 308, and you can even find an alternative compiler with this functionality already developed by Mathias Ricken.

Carburetor

Well, maybe I'm stupid, but I think it's a pity can't extend annotations just for "keep it simple". At least, Java designers didn't think the same about class inheritance :P – Gainor

Java 8 M7, does not seem support sub-classing annotations. What a pity. – Miculek

@assylias JEP 104 is not about making it possible to subclass annotations. JEP 104 was implemented in Java 8, but it is still not possible to subclass annotations (make one annotation extend another annotation). – Reverie

Answer 2

Extensible annotations would effectively add the burden of specifying and maintaing another type system. And this would be a fairly unique type system, so you could not simply apply an OO type paradigm.

Think through all the issues when you introduce polymorphism and inheritance to an annotation (e.g. what happens when sub-annotation changes meta-annotation specs such as retention?)

And all this added complexity for what use-case?

You want to know if a given annotation belongs to a category?

Try this:

@Target(ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE)
public @interface Category {
    String category();
}

@Category(category="validator")
public @interface MyFooBarValidator {

}

As you can see, you can easily group and categorize annotations without undue pain using the provided facilities.

So, KISS is the reason for not introducing a meta-type type system to the Java language.

[p.s. edit]

I used the String simply for demonstration and in view of an open ended meta annotation. For your own given project, you obviously can use an enum of category types and specify multiple categories ("multiple inheritance") to a given annotation. Do note that the values are entirely bogus and for demonstration purposes only:

@Target(ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE)
public @interface Category {
    AnnotationCategory[] category();
}
public enum AnnotationCategory {
    GENERAL,
    SEMANTICS,
    VALIDATION,
    ETC
}

@Category(category={AnnotationCategory.GENERAL, AnnotationCategory.SEMANTICS})
public @interface FooBarAnnotation {

}

---

Middendorf

Does Not Work will print false: @Target(ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE) @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME) @interface C {}; @Target(ElementType.METHOD) @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME) @C public @interface F {} class a{ @F public void S() {} } @Test public void blahTest() throws NoSuchMethodException { Method m = a.class.getMethod("S"); System.out.println(m.isAnnotationPresent(C.class)); } – Discophile

We are annotating an annotation. a#S has annotation F. F itself is annotated by C. Try that. – Middendorf

Yes, that is correct. But is there a way to do that more cleanly rather than reading through the Annotation proxy? – Discophile

Answer 3

In a sense you already have it with Annotations - meta Annotations. If you annotate an annotation with meta information, that is in many ways equivalent to extending an additional interface. Annotations are interfaces, so polymorphism doesn't really come into play, and since they are static in nature, there can be no runtime dynamic dispatching.

In your validator example, you could just on the annotation get the annotated type and see if it has a validator meta-annotation.

The only use case I could see that inheritance would help is if you wanted to be able to get the annotation by super type, but that would add a whole bunch of complexity, because a given method or type may have two such annotations on it, meaning that an array would have to be returned instead of just a single object.

So I think the ultimate answer is that the use cases are esoteric and complicate more standard use cases making it not worth it.

Polychromatic

Answer 4

The designers of Java annotation support made a number of "simplifications" to the detriment of the Java community.

1. No annotations subtypes makes many complex annotations unnecessarily ugly. One cannot simply have an attribute within an annotations that can hold one of three things. One needs to have three separate attributes, which confuses developers and requires runtime validation to ensure that only one of the three is used.

2. Only one annotation of a given type per site. This has lead to the completely unnecessary collection annotation pattern. @Validation and @Validations, @Image and @Images, etc.

The second one is being remedied in Java 8, but its too late. Many frameworks have been written based on what was possible in Java 5 and now these API warts are here to stay for a good long time.

Hardeman

Not only that, it also makes it impossible to define properties that have recursively nested attributes - which is supported by XML schema. This makes annotations strictly less powerful than XML – Cirilla

Answer 5

I might be three years late in responding to this question, but I found it interesting because I found myself in the same spot. Here's my take on it. You can view annotations as Enums. They provide a one-way kind of information - use it or lose it.

I had a situation where I wanted to simulate GET, POST, PUT and DELETE in a web-app. I so badly wanted to have a "super" annotation that was called "HTTP_METHOD". It later on dawned on me that it didn't matter. Well, I had to settle with using a hidden field in the HTML form to identify DELETE and PUT (because POST and GET were available anyway).

On the server-side, I looked out for a hidden request parameter with the name, "_method". If the value was PUT or DELETE, then it overrode the associated HTTP request method. Having said that, it didn't matter whether or not I needed to extend an annotation to get the work done. All the annotations looked the same, but they were treated differently on the server side.

So in your case, drop the itch to extend annotations. Treat them as 'markers'. They "represent" some information, and not necessarily "manipulate" some information.

Pectin

Answer 6

One thing I could think of is the possibility to have multiple annotations. So you could add validator and a more specific annotation at the same place. But I could be mistaken :)

Mardis

Answer 7

Never thought about that but... seems that you're right, there is no problem with annotations inheritance facility (at least I don't see the problem with it).

About your example with 'validator' annotation - you can exploit 'meta-annotation' approach then. I.e. you apply particular meta-annotation to the whole annotation interface.

Truthvalue

I might be three years late in responding to this question, but I found it interesting because I found myself in the same spot. – Pectin

Answer 8

the same problem I have. No, you can't. I did 'disciplined' myself to write properties in annotations to respect some standards, so outside when you get annotation you can 'sniff' what kind od annotation it is by properties it has.

Bobbitt