RetentionPolicy (Java 2 Platform SE 5.0) (original) (raw)

java.lang.annotation

Enum RetentionPolicy

java.lang.Object extended by java.lang.Enum<RetentionPolicy> java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy

All Implemented Interfaces:

Serializable, Comparable<RetentionPolicy>

public enum RetentionPolicy

Annotation retention policy. The constants of this enumerated type describe the various policies for retaining annotations. They are used in conjunction with the Retention meta-annotation type to specify how long annotations are to be retained.

Since:

1.5

Enum Constant Summary
CLASS Annotations are to be recorded in the class file by the compiler but need not be retained by the VM at run time.
RUNTIME Annotations are to be recorded in the class file by the compiler and retained by the VM at run time, so they may be read reflectively.
SOURCE Annotations are to be discarded by the compiler.

Method Summary
static RetentionPolicy	valueOf(String name) Returns the enum constant of this type with the specified name.
static RetentionPolicy[]	values() Returns an array containing the constants of this enum type, in the order they're declared.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Enum
clone, compareTo, equals, getDeclaringClass, hashCode, name, ordinal, toString, [valueOf](../../../java/lang/Enum.html#valueOf%28java.lang.Class, java.lang.String%29)

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object
finalize, getClass, notify, notifyAll, wait, wait, [wait](../../../java/lang/Object.html#wait%28long, int%29)

Enum Constant Detail

SOURCE

public static final RetentionPolicy SOURCE

Annotations are to be discarded by the compiler.

CLASS

public static final RetentionPolicy CLASS

Annotations are to be recorded in the class file by the compiler but need not be retained by the VM at run time. This is the default behavior.

RUNTIME

public static final RetentionPolicy RUNTIME

Annotations are to be recorded in the class file by the compiler and retained by the VM at run time, so they may be read reflectively.

See Also:

AnnotatedElement

Method Detail

values

public static final RetentionPolicy[] values()

Returns an array containing the constants of this enum type, in the order they're declared. This method may be used to iterate over the constants as follows:

for(RetentionPolicy c : RetentionPolicy.values()) System.out.println(c);

Returns:

an array containing the constants of this enum type, in the order they're declared

valueOf

public static RetentionPolicy valueOf(String name)

Returns the enum constant of this type with the specified name. The string must match exactly an identifier used to declare an enum constant in this type. (Extraneous whitespace characters are not permitted.)

Parameters:

name - the name of the enum constant to be returned.

Returns:

the enum constant with the specified name

Throws:

[IllegalArgumentException](../../../java/lang/IllegalArgumentException.html "class in java.lang") - if this enum type has no constant with the specified name

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For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java 2 SDK SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.