How do I identify immutable objects in Java

Question

In my code, I am creating a collection of objects which will be accessed by various threads in a fashion that is only safe if the objects are immutable. When an attempt is m

Answer 1

You Can Ask your clients to add metadata (annotations) and check them at runtime with reflection, like this:

Metadata:

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target(ElementType.CLASS)
public @interface Immutable{ }

Client Code:

@Immutable
public class ImmutableRectangle {
    private final int width;
    private final int height;
    public ImmutableRectangle(int width, int height) {
        this.width = width;
        this.height = height;
    }
    public int getWidth() { return width; }
    public int getHeight() { return height; }
}

Then by using reflection on the class, check if it has the annotation (I would paste the code but its boilerplate and can be found easily online)