IssueTracker

Java doesn't propagate annotations (@Nullable, etc) to inherited methods.

From https://dynamite-preprod.sandbox.google.com/room/AAAAtmrKBc8/PktDIRkr9j4 :

" java does not propagate annotations to inherited methods by default

however you can meta-annotate annotations on types with @Inherited

so i believe even if you have @Inherited on an annotation used on a method, it will never be inherited

https://www.eclipse.org/aspectj/doc/released/adk15notebook/annotations.html#annotation-inheritance

JDK docs say the same thing in a slightly less readable way

Indicates that an annotation type is automatically inherited. If an Inherited meta-annotation is present on an annotation type declaration, and the user queries the annotation type on a class declaration, and the class declaration has no annotation for this type, then the class's superclass will automatically be queried for the annotation type. This process will be repeated until an annotation for this type is found, or the top of the class hierarchy (Object) is reached. If no superclass has an annotation for this type, then the query will indicate that the class in question has no such annotation.

Note that this meta-annotation type has no effect if the annotated type is used to annotate anything other than a class. Note also that this meta-annotation only causes annotations to be inherited from superclasses; annotations on implemented interfaces have no effect.

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/annotation/Inherited.html

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However, Metalava currently skips outputting overridden methods into signature files if their signatures appear to match regardless of annotations. See aosp/1665763 for the workaround we have at the moment, skipping validating nullability of methods that are newly overridden rather than inherited.

It would be good if Metalava were to save some information about the annotations of overridden methods into the signature files, to allow us to check nullability correctly even for newly overridden methods.