How to use an annotation.

Defining an annotation type
To define an annotation type called Meta:

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

@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
public @interface Meta {
 String data() default "fast";
}

Using an annotation
To use that annotation:

...
 @Meta(data = "slow") 
 public void foo(){
...
 }
...

Using the annotation meta data ("calm down dear, it's only an example").
To print out the meta data that the annotation defines for the example above:

 public static void main(String[] args) {
  for (Method method : MyClass.class.getMethods()) {
   Annotation[] annotations = method.getAnnotations();
   int num = annotations.length;
   if(num==1){
    System.out.println(((Meta)annotations[0]).data());
   }
  }
 }