Question

I have a set of Java annotation that I quite frequently use, like this:

@SomeAnnotation(Something)
@SomeOtherAnnotation
@SomeLastAnnotation(SomethingElse)
class Foo
{
    /* ... */
}

As I use all these annotations together quite often, and I may have to add to them in everywhere they are used once in a while, I would like to create a new annotation that I can use instead. This annotation should then “resolve” to all the annotations that I define somewhere.

@MySuperAnnotation
class Foo
{
    /* ... */
}

How do I declare @MySuperAnnotation such that it “resolves” to all the other annotations?

Answer 1

You can’t do that, not without rewriting all of the tools and reflection code that looks for the original annotations.

(Or, as Oliver suggests, you could postprocess the compiled .class files to replace the annotations with something different — not that I know of any tools that will do that for you automatically).