ProcessingEnvironment

An annotation processing tool framework will provide an annotation processor with an object implementing this interface so the processor can use facilities provided by the framework to write new files, report error messages, and find other utilities.

Third parties may wish to provide value-add wrappers around the facility objects from this interface, for example a Filer extension that allows multiple processors to coordinate writing out a single source file. To enable this, for processors running in a context where their side effects via the API could be visible to each other, the tool infrastructure must provide corresponding facility objects that are .equals, Filers that are .equals, and so on. In addition,