/*
 * Copyright 2015 Google Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 *
 * 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.google.errorprone.annotations;
import static java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy.CLASS;

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

/**
 * Annotation for method parameter declarations, which denotes that corresponding actual
 * parameters must be compile-time constant expressions.
 *
 * <p>When the formal parameter of a method or constructor is annotated with the
 *{@link CompileTimeConstant} type annotation, the corresponding actual parameter must be
 * an expression that satisfies one of the following conditions:
 * <ol>
 * <li>The expression is one for which the Java compiler can determine a constant value at compile
 * time, or
 * <li>the expression consists of the literal {@code null}, or
 * <li>the expression consists of a single identifier, where the identifier is a formal method
 * parameter that is declared {@code final} and has the {@link CompileTimeConstant} annotation.
 * </ol>
 *
 * <p>This constraint on call sites of methods or constructors that have one or more formal
 * parameters with this annotation is enforced by  <a
 * href="http://errorprone.info">error-prone</a>.
 *
 * <p>For example, the following code snippet is legal:
 * <pre>
 * {@code
 * public class C {
 *   private static final S = "Hello";
 *   void m(@CompileTimeConstant final String s) { }
 *   void n(@CompileTimeConstant final String t) {
 *     m(S + " World!");
 *     m(null);
 *     m(t);
 *   }
 * }
 * }</pre>
 *
 *
 * <p>In contrast, the following is illegal:
 * <pre>
 * {@code
 * public class C {
 *   void m(@CompileTimeConstant final String s) { }
 *   void n(String t) {
 *     m(t);
 *   }
 * }
 * }</pre>
 *
 * <p>Compile-time constant values are implicitly under the control of the trust domain of the
 * application whose source code they are part of. Hence, this annotation is useful to constrain the
 * use of APIs that may only be safely called with values that are under application control.
 *
 * <p>The current implementation of the @CompileTimeConstant checker cannot reason about more
 * complex scenarios, for example, returning compile-time-constant values from a method, or storing
 * compile-time-constant values in a collection.  APIs will typically accommodate such use cases
 * via domain-specific types that capture domain-specific aspects of trustworthiness that arise from
 */
@Documented
@Retention(CLASS)
@Target({ElementType.PARAMETER})
public @interface CompileTimeConstant {
}