How to get annotations of a member variable?

Question

I want to know a class's some member variable's annotations , I use BeanInfo beanInfo = Introspector.getBeanInfo(User.class) to introspect a class , and use BeanInfo.getPropertyDescriptors() , to find specific property , and use Class type = propertyDescriptor.getPropertyType() to get the property's Class .

But I don't know how to get the annotations added to the member variable ?

I tried type.getAnnotations() , and type.getDeclaredAnnotations() , but both return the Class's annotations , not what I want . For example :

class User 
{
  @Id
  private Long id;

  @Column(name="ADDRESS_ID")
  private Address address;

  // getters , setters
}

@Entity
@Table(name = "Address")
@Cache(usage = CacheConcurrencyStrategy.NONSTRICT_READ_WRITE)
class Address 
{
  ...
}

I want to get the address's annotation : @Column , not class Address's annotations (@Entity , @Table , @Cache) . How to achieve it ? Thanks.

Pentagon

@Bozho It might be useful if you copy DB objects, as seems to be the case here. The copy can't have the same ID, if it's supposed to become a different DB entity. A generic copy algorithm could exclude anything with Annotation '@Id'. – Driftage

Answer 1

for(Field field : cls.getDeclaredFields()){
  Class type = field.getType();
  String name = field.getName();
  Annotation[] annotations = field.getDeclaredAnnotations();
}

See also: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/reflect/class/classMembers.html

Ipsus

Answer 2

Everybody describes issue with getting annotations, but the problem is in definition of your annotation. You should to add to your annotation definition a @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME):

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target(ElementType.FIELD)
public @interface MyAnnotation{
    int id();
}

Hardener

Answer 3

If you need know if a annotation specific is present. You can do so:

    Field[] fieldList = obj.getClass().getDeclaredFields();

        boolean isAnnotationNotNull, isAnnotationSize, isAnnotationNotEmpty;

        for (Field field : fieldList) {

            //Return the boolean value
            isAnnotationNotNull = field.isAnnotationPresent(NotNull.class);
            isAnnotationSize = field.isAnnotationPresent(Size.class);
            isAnnotationNotEmpty = field.isAnnotationPresent(NotEmpty.class);

        }

And so on for the other annotations...

I hope help someone.

Coolant

Answer 4

You have to use reflection to get all the member fields of User class, iterate through them and find their annotations

something like this:

public void getAnnotations(Class clazz){
    for(Field field : clazz.getDeclaredFields()){
        Class type = field.getType();
        String name = field.getName();
        field.getDeclaredAnnotations(); //do something to these
    }
}

Retrieve

Thanks , but my clazz has no public no-arg constructor ... (Sorry didn't mention that). So , clazz.newInstance() won't work. – Pentagon

Just omit the clazz.newInstance() line, I'm not sure why mkoryak included that--it's not used by anything. – Yolande

Object does not have any method getDeclaredFields. Class does. – Figure

Answer 5

You can get annotations on the getter method:

propertyDescriptor.getReadMethod().getDeclaredAnnotations();

Getting the annotations of a private field seems like a bad idea... what if the property isn't even backed by a field, or is backed by a field with a different name? Even ignoring those cases, you're breaking abstraction by looking at private stuff.

Ipsus

Thanks , but what if I cannot modify the class's code ? What if I have to get the private field's annotations ? – Pentagon

@Pentagon I'm really curious to know why you'd need this. If the annotations were on private fields then you weren't meant to know about them. – Ipsus

Hi , because our codes follow a lot of JPA's tutorials . Most JPA tutorials/books directly adding annotations in the private fields. And what I want to dig is these JPA annotations. – Pentagon

Answer 6

package be.fery.annotation;

import javax.persistence.Column;
import javax.persistence.Entity;
import javax.persistence.Id;
import javax.persistence.PrePersist;

@Entity
public class User {
    @Id
    private Long id;

    @Column(name = "ADDRESS_ID")
    private Address address;

    @PrePersist
    public void doStuff(){

    }
}

And a testing class:

    package be.fery.annotation;

import java.lang.annotation.Annotation;
import java.lang.reflect.Field;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;

public class AnnotationIntrospector {

    public AnnotationIntrospector() {
        super();
    }

    public Annotation[] findClassAnnotation(Class<?> clazz) {
        return clazz.getAnnotations();
    }

    public Annotation[] findMethodAnnotation(Class<?> clazz, String methodName) {

        Annotation[] annotations = null;
        try {
            Class<?>[] params = null;
            Method method = clazz.getDeclaredMethod(methodName, params);
            if (method != null) {
                annotations = method.getAnnotations();
            }
        } catch (SecurityException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (NoSuchMethodException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return annotations;
    }

    public Annotation[] findFieldAnnotation(Class<?> clazz, String fieldName) {
        Annotation[] annotations = null;
        try {
            Field field = clazz.getDeclaredField(fieldName);
            if (field != null) {
                annotations = field.getAnnotations();
            }
        } catch (SecurityException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (NoSuchFieldException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        return annotations;
    }

    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        AnnotationIntrospector ai = new AnnotationIntrospector();
        Annotation[] annotations;
        Class<User> userClass = User.class;
        String methodDoStuff = "doStuff";
        String fieldId = "id";
        String fieldAddress = "address";

        // Find class annotations
        annotations = ai.findClassAnnotation(be.fery.annotation.User.class);
        System.out.println("Annotation on class '" + userClass.getName()
                + "' are:");
        showAnnotations(annotations);

        // Find method annotations
        annotations = ai.findMethodAnnotation(User.class, methodDoStuff);
        System.out.println("Annotation on method '" + methodDoStuff + "' are:");
        showAnnotations(annotations);

        // Find field annotations
        annotations = ai.findFieldAnnotation(User.class, fieldId);
        System.out.println("Annotation on field '" + fieldId + "' are:");
        showAnnotations(annotations);

        annotations = ai.findFieldAnnotation(User.class, fieldAddress);
        System.out.println("Annotation on field '" + fieldAddress + "' are:");
        showAnnotations(annotations);

    }

    public static void showAnnotations(Annotation[] ann) {
        if (ann == null)
            return;
        for (Annotation a : ann) {
            System.out.println(a.toString());
        }
    }

}

Hope it helps...

;-)

Marchese

Answer 7

My way

import org.slf4j.Logger;
import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;

import java.beans.BeanInfo;
import java.beans.Introspector;
import java.beans.PropertyDescriptor;

public class ReadAnnotation {
    private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ReadAnnotation.class);

    public static boolean hasIgnoreAnnotation(String fieldName, Class entity) throws NoSuchFieldException {
        return entity.getDeclaredField(fieldName).isAnnotationPresent(IgnoreAnnotation.class);
    }

    public static boolean isSkip(PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor, Class entity) {
        boolean isIgnoreField;
        try {
            isIgnoreField = hasIgnoreAnnotation(propertyDescriptor.getName(), entity);
        } catch (NoSuchFieldException e) {
            LOGGER.error("Can not check IgnoreAnnotation", e);
            isIgnoreField = true;
        }
        return isIgnoreField;
    }

    public void testIsSkip() throws Exception {
        Class<TestClass> entity = TestClass.class;
        BeanInfo beanInfo = Introspector.getBeanInfo(entity);

        for (PropertyDescriptor propertyDescriptor : beanInfo.getPropertyDescriptors()) {
            System.out.printf("Field %s, has annotation %b", propertyDescriptor.getName(),  isSkip(propertyDescriptor, entity));
        }
    }

}

Combatant

Answer 8

Or you could try this

try {
    BeanInfo bi = Introspector.getBeanInfo(User.getClass());
    PropertyDescriptor[] properties = bi.getPropertyDescriptors();
    for(PropertyDescriptor property : properties) {
        //One way
        for(Annotation annotation : property.getAnnotations()){
            if(annotation instanceof Column) {
                String string = annotation.name();
            }
        }
        //Other way
        Annotation annotation = property.getAnnotation(Column.class);
        String string = annotation.name();
    }
}catch (IntrospectonException ie) {
    ie.printStackTrace();
}

Hope this will help.

Orpine

I don't see getAnnotations() anywhere in the API for PropertyDescriptor in Java 6 or 7. Am I missing something? docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/beans/… – Augur