Rethinking TypeAnnotation vs Annotation

[Joel Borggrén-Franck]

Hi Eric,

On 06 Feb 2014, at 20:59, Eric McCorkle <eric.mccorkle at oracle.com> wrote:

> In the process of working on the next roadmap step for type annotations,
> I've realized something.
> 
> The current implementation, and I think most of everyone's thinking on
> annotations treats type annotations as a special case of regular
> annotations.  Indeed, this is sort of the intuitive first thought.
> 
> But looking at the actual implementation details, I think the reverse is
> actually true.  Any given annotation is potentially a type annotation,
> especially earlier in the javac pipeline (where I'm presently generating
> TypeAnnotationPositions in my new patch).  So, on the implementation
> front, it makes perfect sense to do things like store
> TypeAnnotationPositions in Attribute.Compound, as opposed to
> Attribute.TypeCompound.
> 
> I think this would also go a long way towards creating the single
> codepath for attaching annotations that I want to create.
> 
> Comments?

I have never been a big fan of the TypeCompound class at all. Also reading some more in 9.7.4 it looks like annotation can be both a type anno and a declaration anno. So, from my perspective, dumping TypeCompound and moving its data up to Compound seems like something to try out.

cheers
/Joel