Cannot find annotated field

Question

Hello Guys,
I have created an annotation called RelatedEntity, I am using it to create a custom JPA library.
public @interface RelatedEntity {
    String entityAlias();
    String referencedField();
}On trying to find a field annotated with this class like this
    @RelatedEntity(entityAlias="enudi", referencedField="michael")
    private String address = "a.address";I cannot even find this field as annotated even though I am using appropriate reflection api, like
private void findAnnotation(Object obj){
        Class clazz = obj.getClass();
        Field[] fields = clazz.getDeclaredFields();
        for (Field currentField : fields){
            System.out.println("" + currentField.isAnnotationPresent(RelatedEntity.class));
            currentField.setAccessible(true);
            try {
                if (currentField.isAnnotationPresent(RelatedEntity.class)){
                    System.out.println("has annotations   " + currentField.getName());
                    RelatedEntity annotation = currentField.getAnnotation(RelatedEntity.class);
                    System.out.println("annotation is " + annotation);
                    String joinCol = annotation.referencedField() + " " + annotation.entityAlias();
                    System.out.println(" >>> " + joinCol);
                } else {
                    System.out.println("no annotation     " + currentField.getName());
            } catch (IllegalArgumentException ex) {
                ex.printStackTrace();
    }What am I doing wrong or what can be done.
Regards,
Michael

Answer 1

Your annotation, RelatedEntity doesn't specify retention policy, and the default policy is that the annotation isn't available at runtime. See the Retention annotation.
Kaj