Hi,
I've made some annotations I use for configuration, to find the annotation I used the project Scannotation, the only problem I had is to find the right path (since I cannot use the classpath) so at the end to find the paths I search the seam.properties file into the resources and get all the path with that file so I use that path to scan classes.

Is it a good way to implement it? I should also use a personalized file but I don't want too introduce other requirement and the position of seam.properties is fine for me.

This is the code I used:

First I have to find the array with the URL where to search:

import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Enumeration;
import java.io.IOException;

public class SeamComponentsUrlFinder {

     public static URL[] findInSeamPath() {
          ArrayList<URL> list = new ArrayList<URL>();
          Enumeration<URL> resources;

          try {
               resources = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader()
                         .getResources("seam.properties");
          } catch (IOException ioe) {
               throw new RuntimeException("error scanning seam.properties files",
                         ioe);
          }

          try {
               while (resources.hasMoreElements()) {
                    URL url = resources.nextElement();
                    list.add(new URL(url.toExternalForm().replaceAll(
                              "seam.properties", "")));
               }
          } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
               e.printStackTrace();
          }
          return list.toArray(new URL[list.size()]);
     }
}

Then I can search for classes with my own annotations, here an example using scannotation:

URL urls[];
// Get the URL where to scan
urls = SeamComponentsUrlFinder.findInSeamPath();

System.out.println("Cerco tutto...");

AnnotationDB db = new AnnotationDB(); 
try {
     db.scanArchives(urls);

     // Just scan Class Annotations
     db.setScanFieldAnnotations(false);
     db.setScanMethodAnnotations(false);
     db.setScanParameterAnnotations(false);
     
     Map<String, Set<String>> annotationIndex = db.getAnnotationIndex();
     
     // Classes with org.jboss.seam.annotations.Name annotation
     Set<String> entities = annotationIndex.get("org.jboss.seam.annotations.Name");

     // Classes with it.novaware.sn.core.annotations.SNetApp annotation
     Set<String> entities2 = annotationIndex.get("it.novaware.sn.core.annotations.SNetApp");
} catch (IOException e) {
     e.printStackTrace();
}

Let me know what you think...

Thanks!

Demetrio