How to create an instance of an annotation

Question

I am trying to do some Java annotation magic. I must say I am still catching up on annotation tricks and that certain things are still not quite clear to me.

So... I hav

Answer 1

Well, it's apparently nothing all that complicated. Really!

As pointed out by a colleague, you can simply create an anonymous instance of the annotation (like any interface) like this:

MyAnnotation:

public @interface MyAnnotation
{

    String foo();

}

Invoking code:

class MyApp
{
    MyAnnotation getInstanceOfAnnotation(final String foo)
    {
        MyAnnotation annotation = new MyAnnotation()
        {
            @Override
            public String foo()
            {
                return foo;
            }

            @Override
            public Class annotationType()
            {
                return MyAnnotation.class;
            }
        };

        return annotation;
    }
}

Credits to Martin Grigorov.