RetentionPolicy

AI-generated Key Takeaways

• RetentionPolicy is an enum defining how long annotations are retained, used with the @Retention meta-annotation.

• It has three values: SOURCE, CLASS (default), and RUNTIME, indicating whether annotations are discarded by the compiler, recorded in the class file, or available at runtime, respectively.

• RetentionPolicy inherits methods from Enum, Object, and Comparable for common operations like comparisons and obtaining enum information.

public final enum RetentionPolicy extends 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.

Inherited Method Summary

From class java.lang.Enum

final Object	clone() Throws CloneNotSupportedException.
final int	compareTo(RetentionPolicy o) Compares this enum with the specified object for order.
final boolean	equals(Object other) Returns true if the specified object is equal to this enum constant.
final void	finalize() enum classes cannot have finalize methods.
final Class<RetentionPolicy>	getDeclaringClass() Returns the Class object corresponding to this enum constant's enum type.
final int	hashCode() Returns a hash code for this enum constant.
final String	name() Returns the name of this enum constant, exactly as declared in its enum declaration.
final int	ordinal() Returns the ordinal of this enumeration constant (its position in its enum declaration, where the initial constant is assigned an ordinal of zero).
String	toString() Returns the name of this enum constant, as contained in the declaration.
static <T extends Enum<T>> T	valueOf(Class<T> enumType, String name) Returns the enum constant of the specified enum type with the specified name.

From class java.lang.Object

Object	clone() Creates and returns a copy of this Object.
boolean	equals(Object obj) Compares this instance with the specified object and indicates if they are equal.
void	finalize() Invoked when the garbage collector has detected that this instance is no longer reachable.
final Class<?>	getClass() Returns the unique instance of Class that represents this object's class.
int	hashCode() Returns an integer hash code for this object.
final void	notify() Causes a thread which is waiting on this object's monitor (by means of calling one of the wait() methods) to be woken up.
final void	notifyAll() Causes all threads which are waiting on this object's monitor (by means of calling one of the wait() methods) to be woken up.
String	toString() Returns a string containing a concise, human-readable description of this object.
final void	wait(long timeout, int nanos) Causes the calling thread to wait until another thread calls the notify() or notifyAll() method of this object or until the specified timeout expires.
final void	wait(long timeout) Causes the calling thread to wait until another thread calls the notify() or notifyAll() method of this object or until the specified timeout expires.
final void	wait() Causes the calling thread to wait until another thread calls the notify() or notifyAll() method of this object.

From interface java.lang.Comparable

abstract int

compareTo(RetentionPolicy o) Compares this object with the specified object for order.

Enum Values

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.

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

public static final RetentionPolicy SOURCE

Annotations are to be discarded by the compiler.