Add inherit* property for array-valued annotation property to control inheritance behaviour

Brian Repko added a comment - 02/Aug/10 10:51 AM The situation is based on a superclass having an annotation property that returns an array (@UsingSteps/instances) and a subclass having the same annotation property. Should the instances from both classes be combined or not for the subclass. The options that I see on this are 1) don't ever combine multi-valued annotation properties (current code with JBEHAVE-327 patches 1 and 2) 2) always combine multi-valued annotation properties (original code from Christiano) 3) optionally combine multi-valued annotation properties (what Spring does for @ContextConfiguration) I still think that its fair to have 1 or 2 be the way JBehave works (I would opt for 1 as that is how standard annotations work) and users then have to adjust their class hierarchy or annotation properties. But if we go with 3, then there are 2 options put forward. 3a) use boolean inherit<Property> properties to control array combination with default of true this is the Spring solution and is the code in JBEHAVE-327 patch 3 3b) use of an @Inherited annotation - hence the title of this issue I would argue strongly against 3b. Here are my reasons why: 1. @Inherited is already a meta-annotation name - I would use a different name 2. Use of a annotation already has its @Inherited behavior so this would require annotation rather than having a default value 3. I don't see how this design deals with the potential of multiple multi-valued properties or multiple annotations. In order to illustrate 3. Annotation A has properties aOne which returns a String[] and aTwo which returns a String[] Annotation B has properties bOne which returns a String[] and bTwo which returns a String[] Superclass S has @A with aOne and aTwo specified and @B with bOne and bTwo specified Subclass C has @A and @B fully specified as well How do I enable or disable array combination for only bTwo on C? @Inherited(enabledProperties= {"bTwo"} ) Can I put that on S or C and they will both work? If you are going to chose option 3 above (optionally doing array combination) then I fail to see why boolean properties are undesirable - they are exactly what you are looking for - boolean values defined right there with the property with a default value. What is the downside of it? However, I can see in light of what it takes to do this properly, that one might want to go back to option 1 (never) or 2 (always).

Mauro Talevi added a comment - 03/Aug/10 2:21 PM Applied solution 3a) as proposed.