Change Retention Policy of @GwtCompatible to RUNTIME.

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have this ANT typedef that builds fileset of class files based on annotations 
present. To check if a class is annotated with "GwtCompatible" I use 
class.isAnnotationPresent(GwtCompatible.class). That didn't work (because 
GwtCompatible has CLASS retention policy) 

To work around I now use my own variant of @GwtCompatible that has 
RetentionPolicy of Runtime. As an enhancement, can RetentionPolicy of 
@GwtCompatible be changed to RUNTIME ?

Original issue reported on code.google.com by chetanku...@gmail.com on 31 Jul 2012 at 2:32

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Can you clarify why you are building a fileset of class files?

Original comment by kurt.kluever on 7 Aug 2012 at 5:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

The fileset is of source files, but the ant AnnotationSelector we build uses 
the class file to detect the annotation. That seemed simpler than having to 
parse the source for it.

The is the basic pattern of the selector we had implemented
http://grokbase.com/t/ant/user/08apgzmbw6/aw-building-a-fileset-using-annotation
s

Original comment by daniel.h...@gmail.com on 7 Aug 2012 at 6:26

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Also posted here 
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11657549/can-retention-policy-of-gwtcompatibl
e-be-changed-to-runtime

I still want to see a proper description of what the OP is *really ultimately 
trying to accomplish* and see if the SO community really doesn't have a better 
way to do it, first, before assuming we have to change this.  

Original comment by kevinb@google.com on 7 Aug 2012 at 8:27

• Changed state: WontFix

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I have a module that contains both GWT safe and non GWT safe classes.  I need 
to create a jar file that contains only the GWT safe java files from the module 
to be provided to the eventual UI module that owns the full GWT compile 
process.  That is the requirement I'm trying to satisfy.

In order to do this, it seemed like a good idea to annotate the classes with 
@GwtCompatible.  Then the question became, how during our ant build process 
could we recognize which classes were GwtCompatible in order to build this jar 
file.  We found the grokbase article that defined exactly a manner to do what 
we wanted, that it select java files that contain classes with a specific 
annotation.  The problem is that implementation presumes an annotation that has 
RetentionType of RUNTIME.
From the ant build file perspective, this is a very clear and readable approach 
that we would like to have and from the AnnotationSelector implementation it is 
a vary simple implementation given this RUNTIME availability.

Is there a particular concern with the RUNTIME availability in general.  While 
CLASS retention states that the annotation is recorded in the class file, I 
don't know of a mechanism to obtain that without trying to actually interpret 
the byte code itself.  How could I implement AnnotationSelector in a simple 
manner with that constraint?  I'm not sure I understand the JVM level value 
provided by the CLASS retention type, what does use case does that really 
provide that SOURCE or RUNTIME do not?

Original comment by daniel.h...@gmail.com on 7 Aug 2012 at 8:59

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This issue has been migrated to GitHub.

It can be found at https://github.com/google/guava/issues/<id>

Original comment by cgdecker@google.com on 1 Nov 2014 at 4:13

• Added labels: MigratedToGitHub

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by cgdecker@google.com on 3 Nov 2014 at 9:08

• Added labels: Restrict-AddIssueComment-Commit