Consider the case where a constructor takes an enum or an enum-like object - object identity is significant, but there may or may not be a way to get the value from a factory method. The object would be known publicly only because it is declared as a public constant. The most obvious mechanism to me is a ValueMetaData that is comprised of a class and a field name. Make sense? View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4193771#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...