annotation

[Sergio Gazzini]

In docs:
"The common interface extended by all annotation types. Note that an interface that manually extends this one does not define an annotation type. Also note that this interface does not itself define an annotation type."
But what means "manually extends"?
Which another way to extend interface?
Thanks.

[Jesper de Jong]

It means that if you write code like this:

interface MyAnnotationButNotReally extends Annotation {
  // ...
}

in other words, you create an interface that explicitly extends Annotation, then MyAnnotationButNotReally is not an annotation.

You create annotations using @interface instead:

@interface MyAnnotation {
  // ...
}