Array elements in annotations used as single values

Question

What happens when we declare an array in an Annotation and use it like this:

@interface MyAnno {
    String[] names();
}

@MyAnno(names="some value")
class { ... }

Although the element names is declared as an Array of String, we can use it as a String, providing a single value without curly braces. I guess that's a good thing and that's how SuppressWarnings work, I just want to know what happens internally when we do that? How the compiler handles this? Does it replace names with a String named names, or applies {} where the annotation is used? Something else?

Answer 1

From the Java Language specification:

Identifier = ElementValue

If the element type is an array type, then it is not required to use curly braces to specify the element value of the element-value pair. If the element value is not an ElementValueArrayInitializer, then an array value whose sole element is the element value is associated with the element.

It's syntactic sugar - you get an array with a single element.