/* * Copyright (c) 2005, 2016, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. * * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as * published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. * * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that * accompanied this code). * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. * * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any * questions. */ /** * Interfaces used to model elements of the Java programming language. * * The term "element" in this package is used to refer to program * elements, the declared entities that make up a program. Elements * include classes, interfaces, methods, constructors, and fields. * The interfaces in this package do not model the structure of a * program inside a method body; for example there is no * representation of a {@code for} loop or {@code try}-{@code finally} * block. However, the interfaces can model some structures only * appearing inside method bodies, such as local variables and * anonymous classes. * *
When used in the context of annotation processing, an accurate * model of the element being represented must be returned. As this * is a language model, the source code provides the fiducial * (reference) representation of the construct in question rather than * a representation in an executable output like a class file. * Executable output may serve as the basis for creating a modeling * element. However, the process of translating source code to * executable output may not permit recovering some aspects of the * source code representation. For example, annotations with * {@linkplain java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy#SOURCE source} * {@linkplain java.lang.annotation.Retention retention} cannot be * recovered from class files and class files might not be able to * provide source position information. * * Names of parameters may not be recoverable from class files. * * The {@linkplain javax.lang.model.element.Modifier modifiers} on an * element created from a class file may differ in some cases from an * element for the same declaration created from a source file * including: * *
During annotation processing, operating on incomplete or
* erroneous programs is necessary; however, there are fewer
* guarantees about the nature of the resulting model. If the source
* code is not syntactically well-formed or has some other
* irrecoverable error that could not be removed by the generation of
* new types, a model may or may not be provided as a quality of
* implementation issue.
* If a program is syntactically valid but erroneous in some other
* fashion, any returned model must have no less information than if
* all the method bodies in the program were replaced by {@code "throw
* new RuntimeException();"}. If a program refers to a missing type XYZ,
* the returned model must contain no less information than if the
* declaration of type XYZ were assumed to be {@code "class XYZ {}"},
* {@code "interface XYZ {}"}, {@code "enum XYZ {}"}, or {@code
* "@interface XYZ {}"}. If a program refers to a missing type {@code
* XYZ Unless otherwise specified in a particular implementation, the
* collections returned by methods in this package should be expected
* to be unmodifiable by the caller and unsafe for concurrent access.
*
* Unless otherwise specified, methods in this package will throw
* a {@code NullPointerException} if given a {@code null} argument.
*
* @author Joseph D. Darcy
* @author Scott Seligman
* @author Peter von der Ahé
* @since 1.6
*/
package javax.lang.model.element;