/*
 * Hibernate, Relational Persistence for Idiomatic Java
 *
 * Copyright (c) 2013, Red Hat Inc. or third-party contributors as
 * indicated by the @author tags or express copyright attribution
 * statements applied by the authors.  All third-party contributions are
 * distributed under license by Red Hat Inc.
 *
 * This copyrighted material is made available to anyone wishing to use, modify,
 * copy, or redistribute it subject to the terms and conditions of the GNU
 * Lesser General Public License, as published by the Free Software Foundation.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
 * or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 * along with this distribution; if not, write to:
 * Free Software Foundation, Inc.
 * 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor
 * Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA
 */
package org.hibernate.annotations;

import java.lang.annotation.ElementType;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;

import org.hibernate.tuple.AnnotationValueGeneration;

Marks an annotation type as a generator annotation type.

Adding a generator annotation to an entity property causes the value of the property to be generated upon insert
or update of the owning entity. Not more than one generator annotation may be placed on a given property.
 Each generator annotation type is associated with a AnnotationValueGeneration which implements the strategy for generating the value. Generator annotation types may define arbitrary custom attributes, e.g. allowing the client to configure the generation timing (if applicable) or other settings taking an effect on the value generation. The corresponding implementation can retrieve these settings from the annotation instance passed to AnnotationValueGeneration.initialize(Annotation, Class). 
 Custom generator annotation types must have retention policy RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME. 
Author:
Gunnar Morling/**
 * Marks an annotation type as a generator annotation type.
 * <p>
 * Adding a generator annotation to an entity property causes the value of the property to be generated upon insert
 * or update of the owning entity. Not more than one generator annotation may be placed on a given property.
 * <p>
 * Each generator annotation type is associated with a {@link AnnotationValueGeneration} which implements the strategy
 * for generating the value. Generator annotation types may define arbitrary custom attributes, e.g. allowing the
 * client to configure the generation timing (if applicable) or other settings taking an effect on the value generation.
 * The corresponding implementation can retrieve these settings from the annotation instance passed to
 * {@link AnnotationValueGeneration#initialize(java.lang.annotation.Annotation, Class)}.
 * <p>
 * Custom generator annotation types must have retention policy {@link RetentionPolicy#RUNTIME}.

 * @author Gunnar Morling
 */
@Target( value = ElementType.ANNOTATION_TYPE )
@Retention( RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME )
public @interface ValueGenerationType {

	
The type of value generation associated with the annotated value generator annotation type. The referenced
generation type must be parameterized with the type of the given generator annotation.
Returns:
the value generation type/**
	 * The type of value generation associated with the annotated value generator annotation type. The referenced
	 * generation type must be parameterized with the type of the given generator annotation.
	 *
	 * @return the value generation type
	 */
	Class<? extends AnnotationValueGeneration<?>> generatedBy();
}