Spring As of Spring 5.2 AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation no longer finds java meta-annotations

Problem

As of Spring 5.2 AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation is not searching for nested annotations properly.

Sample:

@Deprecated
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target(value = { ElementType.TYPE })
public @interface CustomAnnotation {
}

@CustomAnnotation
public class CustomType {
}

In Spring 5.1.x the following code returns proper result:

Deprecated annotation = AnnotationUtils.findAnnotation(CustomType.class, Deprecated.class);

but not in Spring 5.2.x.

Reproduce

Checkout: https://github.com/alexey-anufriev/spring-framework-annotation-utils-bug
Run mvn clean test to reproduce.

Comment From: dmitrijza

Correction: It's working properly, but only for annotations that doesn't located in the JDK packages, seems it's because of additional checks in AnnotationUtils with AnnotationFilter, that has appeared later (and AnnotationFilter.PLAIN for packages under java.*), in the Spring 5.2.x. and now working perfectly for AnnotationUtils.isInJavaLangAnnotationPackage(...).

Short: AnnotationUtils in Spring 5.2.x doesn't look for annotations in java.lang or java.lang.annotation. That's why you got null when you try to find java.lang.Deprecated in the class.

Comment From: alexey-anufriev

@sq179, thank you for the explanation, I have also tried to dig the source code and figured out the same reason, but still, it was not reported as a backward-incompatible change, so I would like to understand if this is: - regression and will be fixed; - backward-incompatible change and I have to apply custom solution here.

Comment From: nielsm5

I doubt they will fix it, see issue #23929 where they defined/limited the scope.