Lombok @Builder inheritance workaround

Lombok @Builder doesn't work for inheritance use cases:

For example

class Foo{ protected int xyz1; ..... protected String xyz7;
}
class Bar extends Foo{
}

For given use case Lombok will not be able to generate methods to set value of parameter defined in Foo class.

A workaround for this is:

1. Manual creating constructor of Bar.
2. Putting a Builder annotation on that constructor.

Is there a better workaround ?

1

3 Answers

Lombok has introduced experimental features with version: 1.18.2 for inheritance issues faced with Builder annotation, and can be resolved with @SuperBuilder annotation as below.

@SuperBuilder
public class ParentClass { private final String a; private final String b;
}
@SuperBuilder
public class ChildClass extends ParentClass{ private final String c;
}

Now, one can use Builder class as below (that was not possible with @Builder annotation)

ChildClass.builder().a("testA").b("testB").c("testC").build();

3

I leave this here for reference, as other answers demonstrate there is now (not at the time this answer was posted) a @SuperBuilder feature available now in the library which seems more fitting.

It´s a bit hidden, but people have had this question before, see:

To summarise the blog post

@AllArgsConstructor
public class Parent { private String a;
}
public class Child extends Parent { private String b; @Builder private Child(String a, String b){ super(a); this.b = b; }
}

Would allow you to use

Child.builder().a("testA").b("testB").build()

3

There is a solution to this problem currently in the works. Check the progress here: