What's the difference between @Component, @Repository & @Service annotations in Spring?

Question

Can @Component, @Repository and @Service annotations be used interchangeably in Spring or do they provide any particular functionality besides acting as a notation device?

Answer 1

Repository and Service are children of Component annotation. So, all of them are Component. Repository and Service just expand it. How exactly? Service has only ideological difference: we use it for services. Repository has particular exception handler.