Java: Working with Annotations, Generics, & Arrays Using Reflection

IN THIS COURSE

• 1.  Course Overview
  2m 41s
  This course will provide you with an in-depth exploration of the use of annotations and how they work with reflection. You’ll learn built-in and custom annotations and see how annotations on an object or a method can be picked up using reflection. You’ll learn that not all annotations can be picked up by reflection. You’ll learn more about the retention policy of an annotation. You’ll then learn about generics. FREE ACCESS
• 2.  Accessing Annotations on Fields and Methods
  9m 41s
  Here, you’ll watch a demo on how to access annotations on fields and methods. Annotations in Java can be thought of as code elements used to annotate or decorate other bits of code like classes, parameters, return types, or type parameters. This demo will focus on the relationship between reflection and annotations. FREE ACCESS
• 3.  Configuring Custom Annotations for Reflective Access
  12m 13s
  Here, you’ll watch a demo on configuring custom annotations for reflective access. You’ll learn some types of annotations are not preserved for reflective access. This is due to a property called the retention policy. In this demo, you’ll see how the retention policy works. To do so, you’ll create your own annotation objects. These are known as custom annotations. FREE ACCESS
• 4.  Scenario: Accessing Annotations to Perform Checks
  11m 50s
  In this demo, you’ll learn how to access annotations to perform checks. You’ll learn how to define a custom annotation. Then, you’ll use this annotation to impose a constraint on a field in your class. You’ll then use reflection in order to check whether this constraint has been satisfied or not. This will demonstrate how a combination of annotations and reflection can be used to monitor and regulate the state of your program. FREE ACCESS
• 5.  Scenario: Checking Objects for Validity
  11m 27s
  Here, you’ll watch a demo. You’ll learn how to check objects for vitality. You’ll write and run code in this demo. Running this code will allow you to use reflection along with annotations. FREE ACCESS
• 6.  Using Reflection with Generics Classes and Methods
  9m 34s
  Here, you’ll watch a demo. You’ll learn to use reflection with generic classes and methods. You’ll see how reflection works in the context of type parameters and parametrized classes. You’ll use a file called Container.java, which is a class that’s parameterized. FREE ACCESS
• 7.  Exploring Limitations of Reflection and Generics
  11m 4s
  Here, you’ll watch a demo. You’ll explore the limitations of reflections and generics. You’ve seen the limitations of the Java reflection APIs when it comes to detecting type parameters used with local variables in your Java code. There are many different methods in the Java API such as .toGenericString, .getSuperclass, .getGenericSuperclass. But none of these are consistent when detecting the type parameter of a generic class object. You’ll take a different approach here. FREE ACCESS
• 8.  Working with Arrays Using Reflection
  7m 43s
  Here, you’ll watch a demo. You’ll learn to use reflection when working with arrays. You’ll learn how arrays can be used, instantiated, and queried using reflection. You’ll create some arrays of reference types. FREE ACCESS
• 9.  Exploring Array Types and Component Types
  8m 11s
  Here, you’ll watch a demo. You’ll explore array types and component types. You’ll turn your attention to multi-dimensional arrays. You’ll work with code that creates multi-dimensional int arrays. FREE ACCESS
• 10.  Course Summary
  2m 9s
  This course provided you with an in-depth exploration of the use of annotations with reflection. You learned about built-in and custom annotations and saw how to access the annotations on an object or method. You also learned the retention policy of annotation and that only annotations with a retention policy of runtime can be accessed via reflection. You created custom annotation and experimented with various retention policies. FREE ACCESS