JarCastingTags
Use case
- Use marker interfaces or annotations to tag classes and discover them later while avoiding class path scanning.
Usage
Import the project from maven central:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.dbrain</groupId>
<artifactId>dbrain-tags</artifactId>
<version>3.3</version>
</dependency>
Start tracking classes by creating annotations and interfaces annotated with @Tag:
// Annotation
@Tag
@Target( ElementType.TYPE )
public @interface MyTag {}
// Interface
@Tag
public interface MyRootSomething {}
Tag classes:
@MyTag
public class ToDiscover {}
// or
public class MyImplSomething implements MyRootSomething {}
Then query tagged classes using the API:
List<Class> myTaggedClasses = Tags.listClassByTag( MyTag.class );
List<Class> myTaggedClasses = Tags.listClassByTag( MyRootSomething.class );
Components
- An annotation processor that keeps track of classes tagged with specific custom annotations.
- An engine to query gathered information.
Troubleshooting
For this to works as expected, you have to make sure:
- Your development environment must support and discover the annotation processor.
- For most cases, the annotation processor works fine with incremental compilation but if the meta-file go out-of-sync, you have to perform a full compilation.
Roadmap
- User-defined tag definition files to works with 3rd party libraries.
- Enhanced error handling.
- Support annotations on packages.