Annotation-based programming tags are used within your
Web projects as providers of metadata that is then used to generate
other application artifacts as required. You add these tags to your
code in the same way that you add Javadoc comments.
About this task
Adding class-level annotations can be done using the
Generate
an annotated <artifact> class, where <artifact>
might be a servlet or JSP that you are creating within your Web project.
Procedure
You can automatically generate an annotated class in your
Web project. Select Generate an annotated <artifact>
class, and it creates a default annotated class for you. For example, the code for the annotated servlet class is
as follows:
Example
This default annotated servlet class illustrates the three
basic parts of annotation-based programming:
- The first element is the phrase
* Servlet implementation class for Servlet: MyServlet
This
phrase represents the source code comment explaining the function
/ purpose of this class.
- The second element includes the asterisk and @ symbol:
* @
The @ sign
indicates that what follows is an annotation that needs to be processed.
- The third element is the body of the annotation tag:
* @web.servlet
* name="myServlet"
* display-name="myServlet"
*
* @web.servlet-mapping
* url-pattern="/myServlet"
*
This code contains the annotations that is used
to generate the artifacts. In this case, the annotation specifies
that it is of the web.servlet type, which defines data relating to
servlets. The tag also specifies values for the parameters name, display-name,
and url-pattern.
What to do next
The artifacts specified by the annotation tags are generated
at run time.
Related Reference