Annoying annotation io.swagger.v3.oas.annotations.Operation which is too popular and duplicate with application side class name

Springboot uses some annotations for REST api, such as

 @PostMapping @Operation(summary = "an example api") public void forceDone(@RequestBody @Valid final Example example) { ... 

The @Operation is io.swagger.v3.oas.annotations.Operation.

But this name is too popular, the application side also have a class (not @interface) named Operation, such as

class MyApp.Operation { ... 

Sure I can replace one side of them with full class name,

but I wonder

• is there anyway to tell Java to differentiate the @interface and class name? such as (pseudo code)

import io.swagger.v3.oas.annotations.@Operation import MyApp.Operation ... @Operation(...) ... { Operation myAppOperation = ... // not related to the @Operation. } 

(I understand that annotation can not be inherited, but still hoping a better solution).

EDIT: I have seen springboot internal source code searching for io.swagger.v3.oas.annotations.Operation, such as in org.springdoc.api.AbstractOpenApiResource#calculatePath(..)

 if (apiOperation == null || StringUtils.isBlank(apiOperation.operationId())) apiOperation = AnnotatedElementUtils.findMergedAnnotation(method, io.swagger.v3.oas.annotations.Operation.class); 

so obviously there seems no way to use an alternative annotation, I did not expect that.

But I come up with another thought:

• is there any way to reference annotation name by short name? such as

annotations.Operation 

instead of

io.swagger.v3.oas.annotations.Operation 

?

1 Answer

Two ideas came to my mind.

Idea 1:

Create a meta annotation for @Operation with a different name and use this instead in your code base. This works only of the framework supports meta annotations / composed annotations. A quick test in my own Spring Swagger application looked promising.

e.g.:

import io.swagger.v3.oas.annotations.Operation; import java.lang.annotation.ElementType; import java.lang.annotation.Inherited; import java.lang.annotation.Retention; import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy; import java.lang.annotation.Target; @Target({ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE}) @Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME) @Inherited @Operation public @interface OpenApiOperation { String summary() default ""; String description() default ""; // copy needed signatures of original @Operation here } 

Then use @OpenApiOperation instead of @Operation in your code base.

Idea 2:

Make your own Operation class an inner class and import it via the outer class name.

e.g.:

public class MyApp { public static class Operation { // methods } } 

Then use it like this:

import MyApp ... @Operation(...) ... { MyApp.Operation myAppOperation = ... }