The javax.annotation.Generated and annotation processors

[Alan Bateman]

On 22/04/2016 19:55, Sanne Grinovero wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> related to https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8152842
>
> I'm having to patch our annotation processors to avoid the @Generated
> annotation, as I can't use the proposed workaround to use `-addmods
> java.annotations.common`: our build also requires `-target 1.7` and
> the two options are not compatible.
>
> But I hope this will be only very short term? I'm only working this
> around temporarily so that I can keep testing other more interesting
> aspects of Jigsaw, but ultimately we'll need that annotation back.
>
> Thanks,
> Sanne
There's two issues here.

One is that when you run `javac` then the you are essentially executing 
the jdk.compiler module. This module is resolved at startup and the 
transitively closure (+ services) is restricting the set of modules that 
can be read by your annotation processor (that is in its own unnamed 
module). We had a small update that we need to do in JEP 261 to support 
this and at the same time align with the updated policy on root modules 
when executing code in the unnamed module. So assume that `javac`, 
`javadoc` and several other tools will be updated with this soon.

The other issue is specific to the java.corba module and the 5 modules 
that are shared with Java EE. These are not resolved by default so this 
is why `-addmods` (or `-J-addmods` if javac -processor and the 
annotation processor needs the module to be resolved) is needed. In the 
other thread then you are happy that the EE version of Java Transaction 
API is located in preference to the subset in the JDK, in this case you 
want the Java SE subset of the Common Annotations. It's impossible to 
fix all cases without going back to split packages again.

On combing options then if you are compiling with `-target 1.7` then I 
assume you must be also specifying `-source 1.7` and `-bootclasspath 
...` and so `-addmods` isn't in the picture. Better still then `javac 
-release 7` should do it.

On the other hand, if this its the annotation processor using @Generated 
then I would expect this should work:
     -J-addmods -Jjava.annotations.common -processor ... -release 7

The -J is the way to pass options through to the underlying runtime (or 
execution environment in javac speak).

-Alan