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 * published by the Free Software Foundation.  Oracle designates this

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 *

 * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT

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 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License

 * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that

 * accompanied this code).

 *

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package javax.xml.bind.annotation;

import javax.xml.bind.JAXBContext;

import java.lang.annotation.ElementType;

import java.lang.annotation.Retention;

import static java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME;

import java.lang.annotation.Target;

/**

 * Instructs JAXB to also bind other classes when binding this class.

 *

 * <p>

 * Java makes it impractical/impossible to list all sub-classes of

 * a given class. This often gets in a way of JAXB users, as it JAXB

 * cannot automatically list up the classes that need to be known

 * to {@link JAXBContext}.

 *

 * <p>

 * For example, with the following class definitions:

 *

 * <pre>

 * class Animal {}

 * class Dog extends Animal {}

 * class Cat extends Animal {}

 * </pre>

 *

 * <p>

 * The user would be required to create {@link JAXBContext} as

 * <tt>JAXBContext.newInstance(Dog.class,Cat.class)</tt>

 * (<tt>Animal</tt> will be automatically picked up since <tt>Dog</tt>

 * and <tt>Cat</tt> refers to it.)

 *

 * <p>

 * {@link XmlSeeAlso} annotation would allow you to write:

 * <pre>

 * @XmlSeeAlso({Dog.class,Cat.class})

 * class Animal {}

 * class Dog extends Animal {}

 * class Cat extends Animal {}

 * </pre>

 *

 * <p>

 * This would allow you to do <tt>JAXBContext.newInstance(Animal.class)</tt>.

 * By the help of this annotation, JAXB implementations will be able to

 * correctly bind <tt>Dog</tt> and <tt>Cat</tt>.

 *

 * @author Kohsuke Kawaguchi

 * @since JAXB2.1

 */

@Target({ElementType.TYPE})

@Retention(RUNTIME)

public @interface XmlSeeAlso {

    Class[] value();

}