Is it possible to read the value of a annotation in java?

Question

this is my code:

@Column(columnName="firstname")


private String firstName;

 @Column(columnName="lastname")
 private String lastName;

 public String getFirstName() {
  return firstName;
 }

 public void setFirstName(String firstName) {
  this.firstName = firstName;
 }

 public String getLastName() {
  return lastName;
 }

 public void setLastName(String lastName) {
  this.lastName = lastName;
 }

is it possible to read the value of my annotation @Column(columnName="xyz123") in another class?

Answer 1

Yes, if your Column annotation has the runtime retention

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@interface Column {
    ....
}

you can do something like this

for (Field f: MyClass.class.getFields()) {
   Column column = f.getAnnotation(Column.class);
   if (column != null)
       System.out.println(column.columnName());
}

UPDATE : To get private fields use

Myclass.class.getDeclaredFields()