I have a java annotation which takes a string constant as a argument , how can I Pass a string variable to the same?

Question

For Eg @FindBy(how = How.XPATH, using="//input[@name='Username']") here I want to replace the value of the string constant "//input[@name='Username']" with a string variable , even though I declare the variable as final I am unable to pass the variable as a parameter. I want to write like this

final   static String Username_xpath="//input[@name='Username']";   
@FindBy(how = How.XPATH, using=Username_xpath)

You can find further comments on the same type of question here: [link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2065937/how-to-supply-value-to-an-annotation-from-a-constant-java) — Lasse Samson, Sep 19 '14 at 06:17

score 6 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 06 '22 at 17:06

6

No,you can not use variable in Annotation,only constant is permitted.

the following will work,because here USERNAME_XPATH is a constant:

final static String USERNAME_XPATH="//input[@name='Username']";
@FindBy(how = How.XPATH, using=USERNAME_XPATH)

edited Dec 06 '22 at 17:06

Rib47

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answered Sep 19 '14 at 06:14

BlackJoker

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 19 '14 at 06:28

1

You cannot use a variable as an annotation value because the annotation is already evaluated at compile time.

Therefore only compile time constants (static final) can be used as values in annotations.

answered Sep 19 '14 at 06:28

Uwe Plonus

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Thanks a lot Plonus. its clear now. any work around to overcome this limitation as in my case all the variables are stored in a xml file and I want to pass them to this annotation ? – Sudhanva Patil Sep 19 '14 at 07:32

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 19 '14 at 06:32

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Annotations are designed for compile-time or deployment-time processing. At this point you do not have any runtime variables. Therefore it is not possible to use variables in association with annotations.

answered Sep 19 '14 at 06:32

vargapeti

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I have a java annotation which takes a string constant as a argument , how can I Pass a string variable to the same?

3 Answers3