[JSR308] a problem with beans and annotations

[Michael Ernst]

David-

> [The result of PropertyDescriptor.getPropertyType doesn't contain any
> information about annotations.]

java.beans.PropertyDescriptor.getPropertyType() returns a Class object, not
a type.  The Class class doesn't express all facts about a type, in
particular ones like annotations and generics that have no run-time
representation.  For example, Class does not implement ParameterizedType,
so it can represent List but not List<String>.

> So either a new method needs to be added to the PropertyDescriptor class
> which returns the field type (where there is a corresponding field, null if 
> there is no underlying field)

It sounds like this would be a useful thing even in the absence of type
annotations.  In a number of places, a method that returned a Class was
later complemented by one that returns a Type.  As just one example, 
Constructor.getExceptionTypes returns a Class[].  JDK 1.5 added
Constructor.getGenericExceptionTypes that returns a Type[].
(It's unfortunate that many methods named get*Type actually return a Class!
That may have been the source of part of your confusion as well.)

Given a Class object, you can use reflection to obtain the annotations on
its declaration and its members.  JSR 308 needs to extend a few reflective
methods.  For instance, to enable querying the annotations on a type,
java.lang.reflect.Type needs to implement
java.lang.reflect.AnnotatedElement.  The JSR 308 reflection design is not
complete, and contributions to it are welcome.

> or the definition of getPropertyType needs to be 
> changed and it should return the field type.

This would be an incompatible change, so I think it would not be acceptable.


Let me know if I haven't understood and answered your question.

                    -Mike