DevOps / Apache Groovy Interview questions
What is AST transformation in Groovy?
An AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) transformation is code that runs during Groovy's compilation process to modify the program's structure before it's turned into bytecode - effectively generating or altering code automatically at compile time rather than at runtime.
Groovy ships many built-in AST transformations as annotations, like @ToString, @EqualsAndHashCode, and @Builder, each injecting the corresponding generated methods into a class without the developer writing that boilerplate by hand.
Because transformations happen at compile time, the generated code is part of the actual compiled bytecode with no runtime reflection overhead, unlike some annotation-processing approaches that rely on runtime inspection instead.
AST transformations run during:
@ToString and @EqualsAndHashCode are examples of:
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