PROPOSAL: Compiletime information access

[Joseph D. Darcy]

rssh at gradsoft.com.ua wrote:
> AUTHOR:  Ruslan Shevchenko
>
> OVERVIEW:
>
>  FEATURE SUMMARY:
>
>    Add API to access compile-time context of current compiled element from
>  programs and annotation processors.
>
>  MAJOR ADVANTAGE:
>
>    Now compile time properties are unaccessible for programmer. This meaning
>   

No, this flavor information has been officially accessible for 
programmers using Java SE 6 compilers, which are required to support 
annotation processing and the JSR 199 tools API.  See the 
javax.annotation.processing and javax.tools packages, which use 
javax.lang.model.

The view of a type provided by JSR 269 annotation processing is 
read-only, but much of the effect of modifying the file can be had by 
either generating subclasses or the superclass of the type in question.

These APIs don't provide a direct notion of location, but the Messager 
accepts the model of a program element to emit location information.

-Joe