Annotations are a powerful part of Java, but most times we tend to be the users rather than the creators of annotations. For example, it is not difficult to find Java source code that includes the @Override annotation processed by the Java compiler, the @Autowired annotation used by the Spring framework, or the @Entity annotation used by the Hibernate framework, but rarely do we see custom annotations. While custom annotations are an often-overlooked aspect of the Java language, they can be a very useful asset in developing readable code and just as importantly, useful in understanding how many common frameworks, such as Spring or Hibernate, succinctly accomplish their goals.
In this article, we will cover the basics of annotations, including what annotations are, how they are useful in large-than-academic examples, and how to process them. In order to demonstrate how annotations work in practice, we will create a Javascript Object Notation (JSON) serializer that processes annotated objects and produces a JSON string representing each object. Along the way, we will cover many of the common stumbling blocks of annotations, including the quirks of the Java reflection framework and visibility concerns for annotation consumers. The interested reader can find the source code for the completed JSON serializer on GitHub.