Thrift: the import javax.annotation cannot be resolved

Question

I use Eclipse Mars (M1) as my IDE. Today, I generated my service's Java code using Apache Thrift 0.9.2 (latest stable version) for an Android project. This version (unlke version 0.9.1) uses the "Generated" annotation from javax.annotation package, for adding some extractable documentation. It adds a line like the following line before each generated class:

@Generated(value = "Autogenerated by Thrift Compiler (0.9.2)", date = "2014-11-30")

But surprisingly, Eclipse complains about the package javax.annotation. It throws the error "the import javax.annotation cannot be resolved". My project's Java compiler compliance level is 1.6, and its minimum Android API version is API 8 (Android 2.2). How can I fix this error?

Answer 1

Unfortunately most of packages under javax.* are not included in Android's JDK, therefore you need to add those that you need, manually. Here the reason for not including these packages is explained.

Unluckily, there are several versions of javax.annotation package available for download, some of which don't contain the "Generated" annotation class (javax.annotation.generated). Fortunately this jar file does include that specific annotation class. So if you don't use any build system like Gradle, Ant, or Maven, all you have to do is to include the .jar file in a directory in your project (e.g. lib/) and then add this jar library to your buildpath. If you use Ant, then follow the first link.