How to get a JavaDoc of a method at run time?

Question

Its easy to get a method Name of a Class at run time
BUT
How i can get a JavaDoc of a method at run time ?

As the following example

Our Class that include JavaDoc of our target method

public class MyClass {
    /**
     * 
     * @param x value of ....
     * @return result of ....
     */
    public String myMethod(int x) {
        return "any value";
    }

}

Our Class that has a main method

public class TestJava {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // get Class method Name at run time
        String methodName = MyClass.class.getMethods()[0].getName();
        System.out.println(methodName); // will print myMethod
        // How to  get a JavaDoc of myMethod `method` at run time
        // MyClass.class.getMethods()[0].????
        // expected to print a JavaDoc of myMethod
    }
}

Answer 1

The only way to get it at runtime is to use custom annotations.

Create a custom annotation class:

@Retention(RUNTIME)
@Target(value = METHOD)
public @interface ServiceDef {
  /**
   * This provides description when generating docs.
   */
  public String desc() default "";
  /**
   * This provides params when generating docs.
   */
  public String[] params();
}

Use it on a method of a class, e.g.:

@ServiceDef(desc = "This is an utility class",
            params = {"name - the name","format - the format"})     
public void read(String name, String format)

Inspect the annotations via reflection:

for (Method method : Sample.class.getMethods()) {
  if (Modifier.isPublic(method.getModifiers())) {
    ServiceDef serviceDef = method.getAnnotation(ServiceDef.class);
    if (serviceDef != null) {
      String[] params = serviceDef.params();
      String descOfMethod = serviceDef.desc();
    }
  }
}