Allow support for method-based annotation instead of field only.

In my urge to show progress, I "hacked" JpaEntityMetada class so that it can find method based JPA annotations. (In my project, It would be a lot of domain classes to change to support field based JPA annotations, plus some refactor)

I added an if statement inside the for loop around the entityType.getAttributes() - line 42

for(Attribute attr : entityType.getAttributes()) {
  boolean exported = true;
  String memberName = attr.getJavaMember().getName();                // starts here:
  if(StringUtils.startsWithIgnoreCase(memberName, "get"))
  {
     memberName = memberName.substring(3);
     String firstChar = memberName.substring(0,1).toLowerCase();
     memberName = firstChar.concat(memberName.substring(1));
  }
  Field field = ReflectionUtils.findField(type, memberName)  //fix ends here

This works, however, I discovered that @oneToMany relationships do not map to resource links, instead collection resources are being "rendered" inside the owning resource.

BTW, if dependency injection was used instead of "newing" JpaEntityMetada I could have injected my own subclass avoiding the need to modify framework code. (Sorry I don't mean to be rude, just giving some feedback).

So, I'm guessing there is more work to do, besides the hack above. Right ?

In any case, I understand this area is being re-worked. I'm wondering if method based JPA annotations will be supported, or if I have to budget time to solve this on my own.

Thank you very much,

Paulo Avelar

Start with JpaEntityMetada, especially the loop over entityType.getAttributes() and the ReflectionUtils.findField call described around line 42. Trace how method-based JPA annotations are detected and how @OneToMany relationships become resource links; done means method-based annotations are supported without rendering collection resources inside the owning resource.