Getting the qualified class name of generic type with Java 6 annotation processor

Question

I am developing a small code generator using JDK 6\'s Annotation Processing API and am stuck trying to get the actual generic type of a field in the class. To be clearer, let\'

Answer 1

All the other answers, while having lots of good points. Don't really show you the problem you have and it's solution.

The problem in your code is here

TypeElement collectionType = elementUtils.getTypeElement("java.util.Collection");
if (typeUtils.isAssignable(typeElement.asType(), collectionType.asType())) {
...

Your type is not extending java.util.Collection but rather java.util.Collection<*>. Let's rewrite the above block to reflect this:

WildcardType WILDCARD_TYPE_NULL = this.typeUtils.getWildcardType(null, null);
final TypeElement collectionTypeElement = this.elementUtils.getTypeElement(Collection.class.getName());
TypeMirror[] typex = {WILDCARD_TYPE_NULL};
DeclaredType collectionType=this.typeUtils.getDeclaredType(collectionTypeElement, typex);
if (typeUtils.isAssignable(typeElement.asType(), collectionType)){ 
 ...

That should make it work