What are annotations in java

Annotations are notes in Java programs to instruct the Java compiler to do something. Java provides three standard annotations and four standard meta-annotations.

1. An annotation type is a special interface type.
2. An annotation is an instance of an annotation type.
3. An annotation type has a name and members.
4. The information contained in an annotation takes the form of key/value pairs.
5. There can be zero or multiple pairs and each key has a specific type.
6. It can be a String, int, or other Java types.