| J. Duke | 319a3b9 | 2007-12-01 00:00:00 +0000 | [diff] [blame^] | 1 | /* |
| 2 | * Copyright 2003-2004 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
| 3 | * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. |
| 4 | * |
| 5 | * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it |
| 6 | * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as |
| 7 | * published by the Free Software Foundation. Sun designates this |
| 8 | * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided |
| 9 | * by Sun in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. |
| 10 | * |
| 11 | * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT |
| 12 | * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or |
| 13 | * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License |
| 14 | * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that |
| 15 | * accompanied this code). |
| 16 | * |
| 17 | * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version |
| 18 | * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, |
| 19 | * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. |
| 20 | * |
| 21 | * Please contact Sun Microsystems, Inc., 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara, |
| 22 | * CA 95054 USA or visit www.sun.com if you need additional information or |
| 23 | * have any questions. |
| 24 | */ |
| 25 | |
| 26 | package java.lang.annotation; |
| 27 | |
| 28 | /** |
| 29 | * Indicates that an annotation type is automatically inherited. If |
| 30 | * an Inherited meta-annotation is present on an annotation type |
| 31 | * declaration, and the user queries the annotation type on a class |
| 32 | * declaration, and the class declaration has no annotation for this type, |
| 33 | * then the class's superclass will automatically be queried for the |
| 34 | * annotation type. This process will be repeated until an annotation for this |
| 35 | * type is found, or the top of the class hierarchy (Object) |
| 36 | * is reached. If no superclass has an annotation for this type, then |
| 37 | * the query will indicate that the class in question has no such annotation. |
| 38 | * |
| 39 | * <p>Note that this meta-annotation type has no effect if the annotated |
| 40 | * type is used to annotate anything other than a class. Note also |
| 41 | * that this meta-annotation only causes annotations to be inherited |
| 42 | * from superclasses; annotations on implemented interfaces have no |
| 43 | * effect. |
| 44 | * |
| 45 | * @author Joshua Bloch |
| 46 | * @since 1.5 |
| 47 | */ |
| 48 | @Documented |
| 49 | @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME) |
| 50 | @Target(ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE) |
| 51 | public @interface Inherited { |
| 52 | } |