Custom annotation Quarkus - quarkus

Question

We are building the following method that copies values from one entity to another and then persists the changes which works fine for us.
private void copyProperties(E orig, E dest) {
try {
for (Field origField : orig.getClass().getDeclaredFields()) {
try {
origField.setAccessible(true);
Object value = origField.get(orig);
if (value != null) {
Field destField = dest.getClass().getDeclaredField(origField.getName());
destField.setAccessible(true);
destField.set(dest, value);
}
} catch (IllegalAccessException | NoSuchFieldException ex) {
System.out.println("IllegalAccessException ");
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
} catch (SecurityException ex) {
System.out.println("SecurityException ");
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
But now we need to update only the properties that have present a specific annotation called #updatable.
#Documented
#Target({ElementType.FIELD, ElementType.TYPE_USE})#Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)public #interface Updatable {
#Nonbindingboolean nullable() default false;
}
private void copyProperties(E orig, E dest) {
try {
for (Field origField : orig.getClass().getDeclaredFields()) {
Updatable annotation = origField.getAnnotation(Updatable.class);
if (annotation != null) {
System.out.println("Field "+origField.getName()+" annotation present");
try {
origField.setAccessible(true);
Object value = origField.get(orig);
if (value != null || annotation.nullable()) {
Field destField = dest.getClass().getDeclaredField(origField.getName());
destField.setAccessible(true);
destField.set(dest, value);
}
} catch (IllegalAccessException | NoSuchFieldException ex) {
System.out.println("IllegalAccessException ");
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
} catch (SecurityException ex) {
System.out.println("SecurityException ");
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
The problem is that when we analyze the annotation and return by reference the destination entity with the updated properties, the merge method in quarkus does not detect the changes.