Question

Which is better?

1. @SuppressWarnings('unchecked')
2. @SuppressWarnings(AnnotationConstants.UNCHECKED)

Where AnnotationConstants is a typical constants class…

public final class AnnotationConstants {     private AnnotationConstants() { }      public static final String UNCHECKED = 'unchecked';      ... } 

I know that there are a lot of general arguments for and against constants classes–and that’s exactly what I’m not interested in. I want to know if a constants class specifically for annotations is a good idea or a bad idea.

Answer 1

For this specific example I’d stick with literals. After all, you’re trying to suppress warnings – if you use the wrong literal, the warning won’t be suppressed, which will draw your attention to the problem.