@Wither was introduced as experimental feature in lombok v0.11.4.

• Still not sure that @Wither is an appropriate name for this feature.
• Should there be an option to supply a way of cloning the input somehow?
• Should the way that the clone is created by configurable?
• Should we replace @Wither entirely with a builder class?

The next best alternative to a setter for an immutable property is to construct a clone of the object, but with a new value for this one field. A method to generate this clone is precisely what @Wither generates: a withFieldName(newValue) method which produces a clone except for the new value for the associated field.

For example, if you create public class Point { private final int x, y; }, setters make no sense because the fields are final. @Wither can generate a withX(int newXValue) method for you which will return a new point with the supplied value for x and the same value for y.

Like @Setter, you can specify an access level in case you want the generated wither to be something other than public:
@Wither(level = AccessLevel.PROTECTED). Also like @Setter, you can also put a @Wither annotation on a type, which means a 'wither' is generated for each field (even non-final fields).

To put annotations on the generated method, you can use onMethod=@__({@AnnotationsHere}); to put annotations on the only parameter of a generated wither method, you can use onParam=@__({@AnnotationsHere}). Be careful though! This is an experimental feature. For more details see the documentation on the onX feature.

NEW in lombok v1.12.0: javadoc on the field will now be copied to generated withers. Normally, all text is copied, and @param is moved to the wither, whilst @return lines are stripped from the wither's javadoc. Moved means: Deleted from the field's javadoc. It is also possible to define unique text for the wither's javadoc. To do that, you create a 'section' named WITHER. A section is a line in your javadoc containing 2 or more dashes, then the text 'WITHER', followed by 2 or more dashes, and nothing else on the line. If you use sections, @return and @param stripping / copying for that section is no longer done (move the @param line into the section).

Withers cannot be generated for static fields because that makes no sense.

Withers can be generated for abstract classes, but this generates an abstract method with the appropriate signature.

When applying @Wither to a type, static fields and fields whose name start with a $ are skipped.

For generating the method names, the first character of the field, if it is a lowercase character, is title-cased, otherwise, it is left unmodified. Then, with is prefixed.

No method is generated if any method already exists with the same name (case insensitive) and same parameter count. For example, withX(int x) will not be generated if there's already a method withX(String... x) even though it is technically possible to make the method. This caveat exists to prevent confusion. If the generation of a method is skipped for this reason, a warning is emitted instead. Varargs count as 0 to N parameters.

For boolean fields that start with is immediately followed by a title-case letter, nothing is prefixed to generate the wither name.

Any annotations named @NonNull (case insensitive) on the field are interpreted as: This field must not ever hold null. Therefore, these annotations result in an explicit null check in the generated wither. Also, these annotations (as well as any annotation named @Nullable or @CheckForNull) are copied to wither parameter.