How to suppress "unknown enum constant" warnings?

Question

The Checkers Framework references java.lang.annotation.ElementType.TYPE_USE which was added in JDK8. When I use it under JDK7, I get the following warning:

unknown enum constant java.lang.annotation.ElementType.TYPE_USE

This is a reasonable warning, but how do I suppress it for cases I believe are harmless?

Answer 1

It turns out there is no such thing as a harmless unknown enum constant. Once I got past the compiler warnings, I ran into exceptions at runtime:

java.lang.ArrayStoreException: sun.reflect.annotation.EnumConstantNotPresentExceptionProxy
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseEnumArray(AnnotationParser.java:693) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseArray(AnnotationParser.java:482) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseMemberValue(AnnotationParser.java:306) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseAnnotation(AnnotationParser.java:241) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseAnnotations2(AnnotationParser.java:88) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseAnnotations(AnnotationParser.java:70) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at java.lang.Class.initAnnotationsIfNecessary(Class.java:3168) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at java.lang.Class.getAnnotation(Class.java:3127) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationType.<init>(AnnotationType.java:131) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationType.getInstance(AnnotationType.java:84) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseAnnotation(AnnotationParser.java:221) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseAnnotations2(AnnotationParser.java:88) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at sun.reflect.annotation.AnnotationParser.parseAnnotations(AnnotationParser.java:70) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.declaredAnnotations(Method.java:714) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.getAnnotation(Method.java:700) ~[na:1.7.0_40]
    at com.google.inject.spi.InjectionPoint.getAtInject(InjectionPoint.java:466) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    at com.google.inject.spi.InjectionPoint.getInjectionPoints(InjectionPoint.java:664) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    at com.google.inject.spi.InjectionPoint.forInstanceMethodsAndFields(InjectionPoint.java:356) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    at com.google.inject.internal.MembersInjectorStore.createWithListeners(MembersInjectorStore.java:90) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    at com.google.inject.internal.MembersInjectorStore.access$000(MembersInjectorStore.java:34) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    at com.google.inject.internal.MembersInjectorStore$1.create(MembersInjectorStore.java:42) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    at com.google.inject.internal.MembersInjectorStore$1.create(MembersInjectorStore.java:39) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    at com.google.inject.internal.FailableCache$1.apply(FailableCache.java:39) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    at com.google.inject.internal.util.$MapMaker$StrategyImpl.compute(MapMaker.java:549) ~[guice-3.0-no_aop.jar:na]
    ... 102 common frames omitted

Meaning, any code that uses java.lang.reflect.Method.getAnnotation() will fail at runtime.

In my case, this issue was caused by https://code.google.com/p/checker-framework/issues/detail?id=255

Answer 2

If you get this compile-time error:

  unknown enum constant java.lang.annotation.ElementType.TYPE_USE

then you are compiling using a Java 7 JDK, but your code references an enum constant that is only defined in the Java 8 JDK. The problem might be that your code uses a library that references the enum constant. In particular, the type annotations shipped with the Checker Framework reference ElementType.TYPE_USE. You can use the Checker Framework, but still compile and run your code in a Java 7 JVM, by following the instructions in section "Class-file compatibility with Java 7" of the Checker Framework manual.