in java what does the @ symbol mean?

Question

I know what it means in a comment for documentation purposes, but outside of that what does it mean? (I would normally just google this but every non letter symbol shows up

Answer 1

As some other suggests, it is Java's annotation. It helps the compiler to validate your code and to notify the programmer as well.

Very simple code example:

public class SomeClass {

    @Override
    public String toString() {
        return "SomeClass";
    }

    @Deprecated
    public void doSomeOperation() {
        // some operation...
    }
}

The annotation from SomeClass#toString which is @Override helps the compiler to determine that it is an overridden function from the implicit inheritance to the class Object.

While the annotation from SomeClass#doSomeOperation will warn the programmer that the function itself is deprecated already and should be avoided to use.