The Java Tutorials says what follows:
If an @Target meta-annotation is not present on an annotation type T , then an annotation of type T may be written as a modifier for any declaration except a type parameter declaration.
https://docs.oracle.com/en/java/javase/11/docs/api/java.base/java/lang/annotation/Target.html
Other manuals says that if @Target is not present an annotation can be used in any place except TYPE_USE or TYPE_PARAMETER scenarios.
I'm not really sure about what "parameter declaration" means in that case. This class compiles, and the annotation "@EveryWhere" is present really everywhere, without any @Target annotation. Including cast operations, lambda parameters and generics declarations.
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.function.Predicate;
@interface EveryWhere{}
public @EveryWhere class AnnotedEveryWhere<@EveryWhere T> extends @EveryWhere Object{
@EveryWhere int i = 0;
@EveryWhere <@EveryWhere T> String method(@EveryWhere ArrayList<@EveryWhere String> array) {
@EveryWhere Predicate<@EveryWhere ArrayList<@EveryWhere String>> pred =
(@EveryWhere ArrayList<@EveryWhere String> lambdaParameter)->{
@EveryWhere ArrayList<@EveryWhere String> insideLambda = new @EveryWhere ArrayList<@EveryWhere String>();
return (@EveryWhere boolean) true;};
return (@EveryWhere String) "String";
}
}
It depends on Java version. Java SE 18 says
If an @Target meta-annotation is not present on an annotation interface T, then an annotation of type T may be written as a modifier for any declaration.
Unfortunately https://javaalmanac.io does not do diffs at the level of detail necessary to find out in which version it changed.