Hibernate models

Uses a mix of Jandex and Java reflection to build the de-typed abstraction model of classes and annotations referenced by an application’s managed resources^[1].

Consumers can then access details from that abstraction model in a unified way, regardless of the underlying source. For classes which we are able to access from a Jandex index, this has the benefit that the classes are not loaded into the ClassLoader which is important because once a classes is loaded into a ClassLoader, its bytecode cannot be changed and run-time bytecode enhancement is not possible.

This work is intended to replace the hibernate-commons-annotation (HCANN) library, which suffered from a number of shortcomings.

Annotations

The modeling of annotations in hibernate-models is defined by a few main actors:

AnnotationDescriptor

Extended information about an annotation class

AnnotationTarget

Something (Class, Method, …​) where an annotation can be used

AnnotationUsage

Specific usage of an annotation on a target

AttributeDescriptor

Details about an annotation attribute, including it’s ValueTypeDescriptor

ValueTypeDescriptor

Describes an allowable type for annotation attributes - ints, enums, etc. Provides the capability to manipulate these values (create them, wrap them, unwrap them, etc).

AnnotationDescriptorRegistry

registry of AnnotationDescriptor references

Model

These mostly model Java constructs such as Class, Method, etc. but adds the capability for these to be dynamic models (no physical Class).

ClassDetails

Think java.lang.Class

TypeDetails

Think java.lang.reflect.Type

MemberDetails

Think java.lang.reflect.Member

FieldDetails

Think java.lang.reflect.Field

MethodDetails

Think java.lang.reflect.Method

RecordComponentDetails

Think java.lang.reflect.RecordComponent

ClassDetailsRegistry

registry of ClassDetails references

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1. The application’s domain and related classes