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How to inspect java method references (double colon) operator usages in classes during build time

Is there a way to detect usages of java method reference (double colon) operator inside the code?
I need to discover all instance/static method references used in a given class in order to be able to detect some errors (must verify that the target method has a particular annotation - #Good in the below example) during build time. As by convention a method reference should be used only to some of the methods when it is passed to a constructor of some helper class (Info in the below example).
class X {
Info init() {
return new Info(X::beta); // good code: target method has #Good annotation
return new Info(X::alpha); // bad code: target method has no #Good annotation
}
void alpha() {
}
#Good
void beta() {
}
}
The intention is to be able to click on the method reference as this makes it easy to follow as otherwise if just passing Method instance or just method name it would lack this ability.
(The example is not very good but I'm now allowed to share more details, sorry about that!)
I can see IntelliJ IDEA "knows" about them - when you ctrl+click on them it navigates to the target method so there should be some form of a static analysis used there.
I'm already using ObjectWeb ASM to detect invocations to certain methods but it seems it lacks the ability to detect method references (::)
EDIT:
Just a note that you can also pass new Info(x -> x.alpha()) as #Thomas below mentioned in the comments but this would not pass our review process but I guess the additional ability to detect it would not hurt.
EDIT2: What exactly are you trying to achieve with these checks? What makes beta worthy of receiving the annotation?
Answer:
When the init() method is called we obtain the Info instance and from it obtain the lambda which must be a method reference. Then we use javassist ProxyFactory and create a sub-class of class X then instantiate it and intercept all its methods via setting a method handler. So now it is safe to execute the lambda without allowing it to make any side effects - the method body is skipped and the only thing we do is to capture which is the X method that the lambda actually is calling - in the example this will lead to a java.lang.Method instance pointing to X.beta or X.alpha method. Then we can check if it has the #Good annotation and proceed accordingly - which is to call the lambda without any proxying, but that call might happen later, like a millisecond later or an hour later. If there is no #Good annotation we cannot proceed - it is a bug.
So the problem is that this will happen at runtime later and there might be a bug not caught early enough and that is the reason I would like to inspect the X class at build time and catch all the bugs :)

This is a bit of a shot in the dark, as I'm neither very proficient with ASM nor sure if this approach addresses your problem. Having said that, I found that, in a similar setting, asm.MethodVisitor calls MethodVisitor.visitInvokeDynamicInsn(...) for (some? all?) method references.
E.g., if I compile this variant of your class X along with an Info:
class Info {
public Info(Runnable alpha) {}
}
class X {
Info init() { return new Info(this::alpha); }
void alpha() {}
}
... and I then feed the resulting X.class into a mini ClassVisitor + printing MethodVisitor (Groovy for brevity):
class MyMethodVisitor extends MethodVisitor {
MyMethodVisitor(MethodVisitor parent) { super(Opcodes.ASM8, parent) }
#Override
void visitInvokeDynamicInsn(String name, String descriptor, Handle bootstrapMethodHandle, Object... bootstrapMethodArguments) {
println "visitInvokeDynamicInsn($name, $descriptor, $bootstrapMethodHandle, $bootstrapMethodArguments)"
super.visitInvokeDynamicInsn(name, descriptor, bootstrapMethodHandle, bootstrapMethodArguments)
}
}
class MyClassVisitor extends ClassVisitor {
MyClassVisitor() { super(Opcodes.ASM8) }
#Override
MethodVisitor visitMethod(int access, String name, String descriptor, String signature, String[] exceptions) {
println "Starting method '$name'"
new MyMethodVisitor(super.visitMethod(access, name, descriptor, signature, exceptions))
}
}
def clr = new ClassReader(new File("./X.class").bytes)
clr.accept(new MyClassVisitor(), ClassReader.SKIP_FRAMES)
Then the method visitor prints, amongst other details, a call to visitInvokeDynamicInsn from within the method visitation of X::init with the desired X::alpha among the arguments (the xyz being my local package):
Visiting method '<init>'
Visiting method 'init'
visitInvokeDynamicInsn(run, (xyz/X;)Ljava/lang/Runnable;,
java/lang/invoke/LambdaMetafactory.metafactory(Ljava/lang/invoke/MethodHandles$Lookup;Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/invoke/MethodType;Ljava/lang/invoke/MethodType;Ljava/lang/invoke/MethodHandle;Ljava/lang/invoke/MethodType;)Ljava/lang/invoke/CallSite; (6),
[()V, xyz/X.alpha()V (5), ()V])
Visiting method 'alpha'
So it would seem possible to peel the method out of those arguments. I am not sure if this reliable (e.g., whether this bytecode is guaranteed by specification, or whether it can depend on compilation/optimization details).

ByteBuddy - get annotation of declaring class inside intercept()

I need to get the annotation (a value inside of it) of the declaring class of a method during intercept():
#RuntimeType
public static Object intercept(#SuperCall Callable callable, #Origin Method method) throws Exception {
method.getDeclaringClass().getDeclaredAnnotation(SomeAnnotationOnClass.class);
The last line returns null.
new AgentBuilder.Default().with(AgentBuilder.Listener.StreamWriting.toSystemOut()).type(ElementMatchers.isAnnotatedWith(SomeAnnotationOnClass.class))
.transform((builder, type, clazzLoader, javaModule) -> {
return builder.method(ElementMatchers.any()).intercept(MethodDelegation.to(MyInterceptor.class));
This works though... So the annotation is present (on class level!). But not when intercept() is called

You can define your own binder that is executed during instrumentation where the class file-level information is still available. Assuming you define an annotation #interface Foo with runtime retention, you can implement some:
class FooBinder extends ParameterBinder.ForFixedValue<Foo>
where you can extract the constant value from the annotation. This value is then made available to any interceptor method annotated with #Foo.

Using JDBI #BindBean with AutoValue

TLDR;
The JDBI #BindBean annotation generates an IllegalAccessException with AutoValue generated types because the generated types are package private and by default can't be accessed by default using reflection.
Is JDBI inflexible or is there a workaround via AutoValue? (Full questions below)
Quick Background
I'm attempting to use the JDBI #BindBean annotation with a type whose source is generated using AutoValue.
package com.example;
#AutoValue
public abstract class Foo {
public String getBar();
}
The issue is that the generated code looks like:
package com.example;
#AutoValue
class AutoValue_Foo extends Foo {
private final String bar;
#Override
public String getBar() {
return this.bar;
}
// toString, equals, hashCode
}
Notice the class is package private!
Now if I attempt to use #BindBean, for example:
#SqlQuery("select * from baz where bar = :foo.bar")
Condition find(#BindBean("foo") Foo foo);
Because AutoValue_Foo is package private, and BindBeanFactory uses reflection, if an attempt is made to call find with an AutoValue_Foo type, the result is:
java.lang.IllegalAccessException: ... can not access a member of class com.example.Foo with modifiers "public"
The relevant JDBI code is here. I understand from a Java reflection perspective, this could be resolved using setAccessible(true) but that would require a PR to JDBI.
So the questions are as follow:
Is there a way to restructure my code where I can bind a Foo of
type AutoValue_Foo using #BindBean without creating a new JDBI
mapper?
Is there a way to have #AutoValue generate classes that are
public. I understand why this would generally not be desirable
(push people to use the interface and not the implementation).
Is the BindBeanFactory too inflexible? Should it utilize
setAccessible(true) on methods that are otherwise available
outside of their originating package?

Version 2.71 of JDBI will include the ability to specify a type token to #BindBean using the type field. This type token will allow for specifying the type used to make the reflective call against the provided argument.
#SqlQuery("select * from baz where bar = :foo.bar")
Condition find(#BindBean(value="foo", type=Foo.class) Foo foo);
Using this technique you can eliminate the IllegalAccessException described above.

How to specify static method as annotation value in Java

I want to provide an annotation as the following:
public #interface CloneField
{
String sourceField();
Class<?> customCloner();
}
Where people can annotation fields on their classes and some framework will automatically copy fields to their classes instances by running a method from the customCloner on an external data source object.
For example:
class Test {
#CloneField(sourceField = "demoTest", customCloner = StringToIntCloner.class)
private int testField;
This will copy a string value from a field named demoTest on the external data source object into an int field on the user's object.
Since the customCloner doesn't hold any data I would want to define the cloning method as static without the need to instantiate it just for calling a method.
Usually I would define the custom cloner class as:
Class <? extends FieldCloner> customCloner;
where FieldCloner has a method for cloning.
But since static methods are not supported on interfaces there isn't a clean way to do so.
Is there an elegant way to do so in Java 7?
Beside the problem of running the method which can be solved by reflection I want to verify at compile time that the customCloner class has the appropriate method for cloning.

Java Annotations values provided in dynamic manner

I want to provide annotations with some values generated by some methods.
I tried this so far:
public #interface MyInterface {
String aString();
}
#MyInterface(aString = MyClass.GENERIC_GENERATED_NAME)
public class MyClass {
static final String GENERIC_GENERATED_NAME = MyClass.generateName(MyClass.class);
public static final String generateName(final Class<?> c) {
return c.getClass().getName();
}
}
Thought GENERIC_GENERATED_NAME is static final, it complains that
The value for annotation attribute MyInterface.aString must be a constant expression
So how to achieve this ?

There is no way to dynamically generate a string used in an annotation. The compiler evaluates annotation metadata for RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME annotations at compile time, but GENERIC_GENERATED_NAME isn't known until runtime. And you can't use generated values for annotations that are RetentionPolicy.SOURCE because they are discarded after compile time, so those generated values would never be known.

The solution is to use an annotated method instead. Call that method (with reflection) to get the dynamic value.
From the user's perspective we'd have:
#MyInterface
public class MyClass {
#MyName
public String generateName() {
return MyClass.class.getName();
}
}
The annotation itself would be defined as
#Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
#Target(ElementType.METHOD)
public #interface #MyName {
}
Implementing the lookup for both of these annotations is rather straight-forward.
// as looked up by #MyInterface
Class<?> clazz;
Method[] methods = clazz.getDeclaredMethods();
if (methods.length != 1) {
// error
}
Method method = methods[0];
if (!method.isAnnotationPresent(MyName.class)) {
// error as well
}
// This works if the class has a public empty constructor
// (otherwise, get constructor & use setAccessible(true))
Object instance = clazz.newInstance();
// the dynamic value is here:
String name = (String) method.invoke(instance);

There is no way to modify the properties of an annotation dynamically like others said. Still if you want to achieve that, there are two ways to do this.
Assign an expression to the property in the annotation and process that expression whenever you retrieve the annotation. In your case your annotation can be
#MyInterface(aString = "objectA.doSomething(args1, args2)")
When you read that, you can process the string and make the method invocation and retrieve the value. Spring does that by SPEL (Spring expression language). This is resource intensive and the cpu cycles are wasted every time we want to process the expression. If you are using spring, you can hook in a beanPostProcessor and process the expression once and store the result somewhere. (Either a global properties object or in a map which can be retrieved anywhere).
This is a hacky way of doing what we want. Java stores a private variable which maintains a map of annotations on the class/field/method. You can use reflection and get hold of that map. So while processing the annotation for the first time, we resolve the expression and find the actual value. Then we create an annotation object of the required type. We can put the newly created annotation with the actual value (which is constant) on the property of the annotation and override the actual annotation in the retrieved map.
The way jdk stores the annotation map is java version dependent and is not reliable since it is not exposed for use (it is private).
You can find a reference implementation here.
https://rationaleemotions.wordpress.com/2016/05/27/changing-annotation-values-at-runtime/
P.S: I haven't tried and tested the second method.