How do Java method annotations work in conjunction with method overriding?

Question

I have a parent class Parent and a child class Child, defined thus:

class Parent {
    @MyAnnotation("hello")
    void foo         


        

Answer 1

While the answer to the question as asked is that Java's Method.getAnnotation() does not consider overridden methods, sometimes it is useful to find these annotations. Here is a more complete version of Saintali's answer that I'm currently using:

public static  A getInheritedAnnotation(
    Class annotationClass, AnnotatedElement element)
{
    A annotation = element.getAnnotation(annotationClass);
    if (annotation == null && element instanceof Method)
        annotation = getOverriddenAnnotation(annotationClass, (Method) element);
    return annotation;
}

private static  A getOverriddenAnnotation(
    Class annotationClass, Method method)
{
    final Class methodClass = method.getDeclaringClass();
    final String name = method.getName();
    final Class[] params = method.getParameterTypes();

    // prioritize all superclasses over all interfaces
    final Class superclass = methodClass.getSuperclass();
    if (superclass != null)
    {
        final A annotation =
            getOverriddenAnnotationFrom(annotationClass, superclass, name, params);
        if (annotation != null)
            return annotation;
    }

    // depth-first search over interface hierarchy
    for (final Class intf : methodClass.getInterfaces())
    {
        final A annotation =
            getOverriddenAnnotationFrom(annotationClass, intf, name, params);
        if (annotation != null)
            return annotation;
    }

    return null;
}

private static  A getOverriddenAnnotationFrom(
    Class annotationClass, Class searchClass, String name, Class[] params)
{
    try
    {
        final Method method = searchClass.getMethod(name, params);
        final A annotation = method.getAnnotation(annotationClass);
        if (annotation != null)
            return annotation;
        return getOverriddenAnnotation(annotationClass, method);
    }
    catch (final NoSuchMethodException e)
    {
        return null;
    }
}