Find method that's being overridden with annotation processing

Question

Code structure

Let's say we have a structure like this:

class A {

    @AMethodAnnotation("my-data")
    public void myMethod() {

    }

}

@MyClassAnnotation
class B extends A {

    @Override
    public void myMethod() {

    }

}

What I'm trying to achieve

Using annotation processing I'm trying to extract data from the annotation AMethodAnnotation located on the method myMethod inside class A . class B extends this class and overrides it's method myMethod .

The twist is that I want data from methods with AMethodAnnotation if the class it's inside has the annotation MyClassAnnotation .

I'm getting the classes with annotation MyClassAnnotation and looping through the enclosedElements , there I can check if it has the Override annotation, but I'm not sure how to get the method it's overriding, since that is where the AMethodAnnotation is located with the data I want. ExecutableElement does not appear to provide methods to get this.

for (Element classElement : roundEnv.getElementsAnnotatedWith(MyClassAnnotation.class)) {
    // Make sure it's a class
    if (classElement.getKind() != ElementKind.CLASS) {
        continue;
    }

    // Loop through methods inside class
    for (Element methodElement : classElement.getEnclosedElements()) {
        // Make sure the element is a method & has a @Path annotation
        if (methodElement.getKind() != ElementKind.METHOD) {
            continue;
        }

        // If method has @Override annotation do stuff

    }
}

The question

Is there a way to get a reference to the method which is being overridden?

There is a way, you get the superclass of B which is A and you loop through the enclosedElements in A , then you would have to verify if the method name is the same, and if the parameters are the same and are in the same order. But I find this way to require a lot of checking, hence my question if there's a better way.

Answer 1

I wrote the following method based on the link @rmuller posted in the comments. There's extensive documentation for this method as seen in the Javadoc and the image below, in which it's more readable.

/**
 * Will find the method which the method <strong>methodElement</strong> is overriding, if any.
 * It does this by recursively traversing up the superclass tree of the
 * <strong>classElement</strong> and checking if there are methods which override the
 * <strong>methodElement</strong>. It will return after it finds the first method with the
 * annotation <strong>annotation</strong>.
 *
 * @param originalClassElement The original class inside which the
 *                             <strong>methodElement</strong> is located.
 * @param classElement         The class which represents the superclass while recursively
 *                             looking up the tree, it should be equal to the
 *                             <strong>originalClassElement</strong> when first calling this
 *                             method.
 * @param methodElement        The method for which should be checked if it's overriding
 *                             anything.
 * @param annotation           The annotation which must be matched before returning the result
 * @return Will return the following, the list is written in order:
 *         <ul>
 *         <li>The method <strong>methodElement</strong> if <strong>methodElement</strong>
 *         already has an annotation of the type <strong>annotation</strong></li>
 *         <li>Null if the method <strong>methodElement</strong> does not have an @Override
 *         annotation</li>
 *         <li>Null if the class <strong>classElement</strong> does not have a superclass</li>
 *         <li>The method element which was found to have the annotation
 *         <strong>annotation</strong></li>
 *         </ul>
 */
public ExecutableElement getMethodOverride(TypeElement originalClassElement,
        TypeElement classElement, ExecutableElement methodElement,
        Class<? extends Annotation> annotation) {

    if (methodElement.getAnnotation(annotation) != null) {
        // The methodElement which was passed has the required annotation already
        return methodElement;
    }

    if (methodElement.getAnnotation(Override.class) == null) {
        // The methodElement which was passed does not have an @Override annotation and is
        // therefore not overriding anything.
        return null;
    }

    if (classElement.getSuperclass().getKind() == TypeKind.NONE) {
        // Class has no superclass
        return null;
    }

    for (Element elem : classElement.getEnclosedElements()) {
        if (elem.getKind() != ElementKind.METHOD) {
            // Not a method
            continue;
        }

        // Check if the method inside the superclass overrids the method inside the original
        // class
        if (this.processingEnv.getElementUtils().overrides(methodElement,
                (ExecutableElement) elem, classElement)) {

            // Recursively go up the tree and check since this method might also override
            // another method
            return getMethodOverride(originalClassElement,
                    this.env.getElementUtils()
                            .getTypeElement(classElement.getSuperclass().toString()),
                    (ExecutableElement) elem, annotation);
        }

    }

    // Recursively go up the tree and check there
    return getMethodOverride(originalClassElement,
            this.env.getElementUtils().getTypeElement(classElement.getSuperclass().toString()),
            methodElement, annotation);
}