post-compilation removal of annotations from byte code

Question

we are using a library that contains beans that are annotated with JAXB annotations. nothing in the way we use these classes depends on JAXB. in other words, we don\'t need JAXB

Answer 1

I have used ByteBuddy library to remove annotations. Unfortunately I was unable to remove annotation with high level api, so I used ASM api. Here is example, how you can remove @Deprecated annotation from field of a class:

import net.bytebuddy.ByteBuddy;
import net.bytebuddy.asm.AsmVisitorWrapper;
import net.bytebuddy.description.field.FieldDescription;
import net.bytebuddy.description.type.TypeDescription;
import net.bytebuddy.jar.asm.AnnotationVisitor;
import net.bytebuddy.jar.asm.FieldVisitor;
import net.bytebuddy.jar.asm.Opcodes;
import net.bytebuddy.jar.asm.Type;
import net.bytebuddy.matcher.ElementMatchers;

import java.lang.annotation.Annotation;
import java.util.Arrays;

public class Test {

    public static class Foo {
        @Deprecated
        public Integer bar;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
        System.out.println("Annotations before processing " + getAnnotationsString(Foo.class));
        Class modifiedClass = new ByteBuddy()
                .redefine(Foo.class)
                .visit(new AsmVisitorWrapper.ForDeclaredFields()
                        .field(ElementMatchers.isAnnotatedWith(Deprecated.class),
                                new AsmVisitorWrapper.ForDeclaredFields.FieldVisitorWrapper() {
                                    @Override
                                    public FieldVisitor wrap(TypeDescription instrumentedType,
                                                             FieldDescription.InDefinedShape fieldDescription,
                                                             FieldVisitor fieldVisitor) {
                                        return new FieldVisitor(Opcodes.ASM5, fieldVisitor) {
                                            @Override
                                            public AnnotationVisitor visitAnnotation(String desc, boolean visible) {
                                                if (Type.getDescriptor(Deprecated.class).equals(desc)) {
                                                    return null;
                                                }
                                                return super.visitAnnotation(desc, visible);
                                            }
                                        };
                                    }
                                }))
                // can't use the same name, because Test$Foo is already loaded
                .name("Test$Foo1")
                .make()
                .load(Test.class.getClassLoader())
                .getLoaded();
        System.out.println("Annotations after processing " + getAnnotationsString(modifiedClass));
    }

    private static String getAnnotationsString(Class clazz) throws NoSuchFieldException {
        Annotation[] annotations = clazz.getDeclaredField("bar").getDeclaredAnnotations();
        return Arrays.toString(annotations);
    }
}