Inherited in Java

java.lang.annotation.Inherited

Indicates that an annotation type is automatically inherited. If an Inherited meta-annotation is present on an annotation type declaration, and the user queries the annotation type on a class declaration and the class declaration has no annotation for this type, then the class's superclass will automatically be queried for the annotation type.

This process will be repeated until an annotation for this type is found, or at the top of the class hierarchy (Object)is reached. If no superclass has an annotation for this type, then the query will indicate that the class in question has no such annotation.

Note that this meta-annotation type has no effect if the annotated type is used to annotate anything other than a class.

Declaration

@Documented
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target(ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE)
public @interface Inherited {
}

Some other classes/interfaces of java.lang.annotation

Native: Indicates that a field defining a constant value may be referenced from native code.

Inherited: Indicates that an annotation type is automatically inherited.

IncompleteAnnotationException: Thrown to indicate that a program has attempted to access an element of an annotation type that was added to the annotation type definition after the annotation was compiled (or serialized). 

AnnotationFormatError: Thrown when the annotation parser attempts to read an annotation from a class file and determines that the annotation is malformed.

ElementType: The constants of this enumerated type provide a simple classification of the syntactic locations where annotations may appear in a Java program.

Documented: If the annotation @Documented is present on the declaration of an annotation type A, then any @A annotation on an element is considered part of the element's public contract.

AnnotationTypeMismatchException: Thrown to indicate that a program has attempted to access an element of an annotation whose type has changed after the annotation was compiled.

Annotation: The common interface is extended by all annotation types.

Repeatable: The annotation type is java.lang.annotation.Repeatable is used to indicate that the annotation type whose declaration it(meta-)annotates is repeatable.

Retention: Indicates how long annotations with the annotated type are to be retained. If no Retention annotation is present on an annotation-type declaration, the retention policy defaults to RetentionPolicy.CLASS.

RetentionPolicy: Annotation retention policy. The constants of this enumerated type describe the various policies for retaining annotations.

Target: Indicates the contexts in which an annotation type is applicable.