AnnotatedElementUtils.getAllAnnotationAttributes(…, "javax.annotation.Nonnull") returns null

[mp911de]

Calling AnnotatedElementUtils.getAllAnnotationAttributes(…, "javax.annotation.Nonnull") with version 5.2.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT for org.springframework.lang.NonNullApi.class and javax.annotation.ParametersAreNonnullByDefault.class annotation types returns null.

Previously (5.1 and earlier), the method returned MultiValueMap containing annotation attributes.

[jhoeller]

Aside from this being a regression that's worth fixing: What kind of algorithm is this? Couldn't you simply use the standard reflection API for annotation introspection purposes there? I'm surprised that standard javax annotations are introspected as attribute value maps...

[mp911de]

In Spring Data we support annotations and meta-annotations that are annotated with JSR305 annotations to discover whether a package, class or method has opted-in for non-nullability. We do not express a limit on meta-annotation nesting, so one can use either directly JSR305 annotations, Spring Framework annotations (that are annotated with JSR305) or further, composed annotations.

That's, why we are using AnnotatedElementUtils. @Nonnull's when attribute expresses non-nullability or allows opting out to express that a particular argument or return value may be null.