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);
}