public interface Element extends AnnotatedConstruct
Elements should be compared using the
method. There is no guarantee that any particular element will
always be represented by the same object.
To implement operations based on the class of an
Element object, either use a visitor or
use the result of the
getKind() method. Using
instanceof is not necessarily a reliable idiom for
determining the effective class of an object in this modeling
hierarchy since an implementation may choose to have a single object
|Modifier and Type||Method and Description|
Applies a visitor to this element.
Returns the type defined by this element.
Returns this construct's annotation of the specified type if such an annotation is present, else
Returns the annotations that are directly present on this construct.
Returns the elements that are, loosely speaking, directly enclosed by this element.
Returns the innermost element within which this element is, loosely speaking, enclosed.
Returns the modifiers of this element, excluding annotations.
Returns the simple (unqualified) name of this element.
Obeys the general contract of
A generic element defines a family of types, not just one.
If this is a generic element, a prototypical type is
returned. This is the element's invocation on the
type variables corresponding to its own formal type parameters.
for the generic class element
C<N extends Number>,
the parameterized type
C<N> is returned.
Types utility interface has more general methods
for obtaining the full range of types defined by an element.
kindof this element.
staticmodifiers of interface members, are included.
"Set". If this element represents an unnamed package, an empty name is returned. If it represents a constructor, the name "
<init>" is returned. If it represents a static initializer, the name "
<clinit>" is returned. If it represents an anonymous class or instance initializer, an empty name is returned.
nullif there is none
Note that elements of certain kinds can be isolated using
boolean equals(Object obj)
trueif the argument represents the same element as
Note that the identity of an element involves implicit state
not directly accessible from the element's methods, including
state about the presence of unrelated types. Element objects
created by different implementations of these interfaces should
not be expected to be equal even if "the same"
element is being modeled; this is analogous to the inequality
Class objects for the same class file loaded through
different class loaders.
List<? extends AnnotationMirror> getAnnotationMirrors()
To get inherited annotations as well, use
<A extends Annotation> A getAnnotation(Class<A> annotationType)
The annotation returned by this method could contain an element
whose value is of type
This value cannot be returned directly: information necessary to
locate and load a class (such as the class loader to use) is
not available, and the class might not be loadable at all.
Attempting to read a
Class object by invoking the relevant
method on the returned annotation
will result in a
from which the corresponding
TypeMirror may be extracted.
Similarly, attempting to read a
will result in a
Note: This method is unlike others in this and related interfaces. It operates on runtime reflective information — representations of annotation types currently loaded into the VM — rather than on the representations defined by and used throughout these interfaces. Consequently, calling methods on the returned annotation object can throw many of the exceptions that can be thrown when calling methods on an annotation object returned by core reflection. This method is intended for callers that are written to operate on a known, fixed set of annotation types.
A- the annotation type
Classobject corresponding to the annotation type
<R,P> R accept(ElementVisitor<R,P> v, P p)
R- the return type of the visitor's methods
P- the type of the additional parameter to the visitor's methods
v- the visitor operating on this element
p- additional parameter to the visitor
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For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java SE Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.
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