The example given here is unhelpful
“For example, this meta-annotation indicates that the declared type is itself a meta-annotation type”
We are in the process of learning what a meta-annotation is, so we should be given an example of some thing we are already familiar with.
I will now have to find some other documentation to help me understand this.
It may be of course when I do understand, that this is a helpful illustration of the generality of the construct.
@Target(ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE) public @interface MetaAnnotationType { ... }This meta-annotation indicates that the declared type is intended solely for use as a member type in complex annotation type declarations. It cannot be used to annotate anything directly:@Target({}) public @interface MemberType { ... }It is a compile-time error for a single ElementType constant to appear more than once in a Target annotation. For example, the following meta-annotation is illegal:@Target({ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.METHOD, ElementType.FIELD}) public @interface Bogus { ... }