On 14 Apr 2010, at 18:59, Dan Allen wrote:
> /**
> * Inspect AnnoatedElement <b>element</b> for a specific <b>type</b> of annotation. This
> * also discovers annotations defined through a @ {@link Stereotype} and the CDI SPI. Having found
> * the annotation, it is inspected for a member with name <b>memberName</b>.
> *
> * @param element The element to inspect
> * @param annotationType The annotation type to check for
> * @param memberName The name of the member to look for
> * @param expectedMemberType The expectedType of the member
> * @param metaAnnotation Whether the annotation may be used as a meta-annotation or not
> *
> * @return The annotation member's value or null if no matching annotation was found
> * @throws IllegalArgumentException if element, annotationType, memberName or expectedMemberType is null
> * @throws IllegalArgumentException if the annotationType does not have a member of memberName
> * @throws ClassCastException if the value of memberName cannot be cast to expectedMemberType
> */
> public static <V> V getAnnotationMemberValue(AnnotatedElement element, final Class<A> annotationType, String memberName, Class<V> expectedMemberType, boolean metaAnnotation)
>
> WDYT?
>
> I'm not sure I understand why we need a separate method to get an annotation member value. It requires specifying a string name. Why can't we simply return the annotation instance and then allow the value to be read by invoking the member method?