/* * Copyright (c) 2006, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. * * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as * published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. * * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that * accompanied this code). * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. * * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any * questions. */ package javax.xml.bind.annotation; import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext; import java.lang.annotation.ElementType; import java.lang.annotation.Retention; import static java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME; import java.lang.annotation.Target; /** * Instructs JAXB to also bind other classes when binding this class. * *

* Java makes it impractical/impossible to list all sub-classes of * a given class. This often gets in a way of JAXB users, as it JAXB * cannot automatically list up the classes that need to be known * to {@link JAXBContext}. * *

* For example, with the following class definitions: * *

 * class Animal {}
 * class Dog extends Animal {}
 * class Cat extends Animal {}
 * 
* *

* The user would be required to create {@link JAXBContext} as * JAXBContext.newInstance(Dog.class,Cat.class) * (Animal will be automatically picked up since Dog * and Cat refers to it.) * *

* {@link XmlSeeAlso} annotation would allow you to write: *

 * @XmlSeeAlso({Dog.class,Cat.class})
 * class Animal {}
 * class Dog extends Animal {}
 * class Cat extends Animal {}
 * 
* *

* This would allow you to do JAXBContext.newInstance(Animal.class). * By the help of this annotation, JAXB implementations will be able to * correctly bind Dog and Cat. * * @author Kohsuke Kawaguchi * @since JAXB2.1 */ @Target({ElementType.TYPE}) @Retention(RUNTIME) public @interface XmlSeeAlso { Class[] value(); }