javax.lang.model.element: public interface: ElementVisitor

javax.lang.model.element
public interface: ElementVisitor [javadoc | source]

All Known Implementing Classes:
SimpleElementVisitor7, SimpleElementVisitor6, AbstractElementVisitor7, AbstractElementVisitor6, ElementKindVisitor7, ElementKindVisitor6, ElementScanner7, ElementScanner6

A visitor of program elements, in the style of the visitor design pattern. Classes implementing this interface are used to operate on an element when the kind of element is unknown at compile time. When a visitor is passed to an element's accept method, the visitXYZ method most applicable to that element is invoked.

Classes implementing this interface may or may not throw a {@code NullPointerException} if the additional parameter {@code p} is {@code null}; see documentation of the implementing class for details.

WARNING: It is possible that methods will be added to this interface to accommodate new, currently unknown, language structures added to future versions of the Java™ programming language. Therefore, visitor classes directly implementing this interface may be source incompatible with future versions of the platform. To avoid this source incompatibility, visitor implementations are encouraged to instead extend the appropriate abstract visitor class that implements this interface. However, an API should generally use this visitor interface as the type for parameters, return type, etc. rather than one of the abstract classes.

Parameters:

- the return type of this visitor's methods. Use Void for visitors that do not need to return results.

- the type of the additional parameter to this visitor's methods. Use {@code Void} for visitors that do not need an additional parameter.

Also see:

AbstractElementVisitor6

AbstractElementVisitor7

author: Joseph - D. Darcy

author: Scott - Seligman

author: Peter - von der Ahé

since: 1.6 -

Method from javax.lang.model.element.ElementVisitor Summary:
visit, visit, visitExecutable, visitPackage, visitType, visitTypeParameter, visitUnknown, visitVariable

Method from javax.lang.model.element.ElementVisitor Detail:
public R visit(Element e) A convenience method equivalent to {@code v.visit(e, null)}.
public R visit(Element e, P p) Visits an element.
public R visitExecutable(ExecutableElement e, P p) Visits an executable element.
public R visitPackage(PackageElement e, P p) Visits a package element.
public R visitType(TypeElement e, P p) Visits a type element.
public R visitTypeParameter(TypeParameterElement e, P p) Visits a type parameter element.
public R visitUnknown(Element e, P p) Visits an unknown kind of element. This can occur if the language evolves and new kinds of elements are added to the {@code Element} hierarchy.
public R visitVariable(VariableElement e, P p) Visits a variable element.