Since.java

/*
 * Copyright (C) 2008 Google Inc.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package com.smartandroid.sa.json.annotations;

import java.lang.annotation.ElementType;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;

/**
 * An annotation that indicates the version number since a member or a type has
 * been present. This annotation is useful to manage versioning of your Json
 * classes for a web-service.
 * 
 * <p>
 * This annotation has no effect unless you build {@link com.google.gson.Gson}
 * with a {@link com.google.gson.GsonBuilder} and invoke
 * {@link com.google.gson.GsonBuilder#setVersion(double)} method.
 * 
 * <p>
 * Here is an example of how this annotation is meant to be used:
 * </p>
 * 
 * <pre>
 * public class User {
 *   private String firstName;
 *   private String lastName;
 *   @Since(1.0) private String emailAddress;
 *   @Since(1.0) private String password;
 *   @Since(1.1) private Address address;
 * }
 * </pre>
 * 
 * <p>
 * If you created Gson with {@code new Gson()}, the {@code toJson()} and
 * {@code fromJson()} methods will use all the fields for serialization and
 * deserialization. However, if you created Gson with
 * {@code Gson gson = new GsonBuilder().setVersion(1.0).create()} then the
 * {@code toJson()} and {@code fromJson()} methods of Gson will exclude the
 * {@code address} field since it's version number is set to {@code 1.1}.
 * </p>
 * 
 * @author Inderjeet Singh
 * @author Joel Leitch
 */
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target({ ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.TYPE })
public @interface Since {
	/**
	 * the value indicating a version number since this member or type has been
	 * present.
	 */
	double value();
}