How to create and use marker annotation in Java

Description

A marker annotation contains no members. It is used to mark a declaration.

To determine if a marker annotation is present, use the method isAnnotationPresent( ). isAnnotationPresent( ) is a defined by the AnnotatedElement interface.

Example

Here is an example that uses a marker annotation.


import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
/*from w  w w .ja  v  a 2 s  .com*/

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@interface MyMarker {
}

public class Main {
  @MyMarker
  public static void myMethod() throws Exception{
    Main ob = new Main();
      Method m = ob.getClass().getMethod("myMethod");
      if (m.isAnnotationPresent(MyMarker.class)){
        System.out.println("MyMarker is present.");
      }        
  }
  public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception{
    myMethod();
  }
}

The code above generates the following result.





















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