javax.lang.model: How do I get the type of a field?

Question

In java.lang.reflect, one would do:

Field someField = ...;
Class<?> fieldType = someField.getType();

But what do I do with javax.lang.model's VariableElement (which may or may not represent a field)? A corresponding return value would be (I guess) TypeElement.

VariableElement someField = ...;
TypeElement fieldType = someField.???;

So, in javax.lang.model, how do I get the type (or TypeElement) of a field, represented by VariableElement?

BTW, there is not a single Stackoverflow-tag which would fit to javax.lang.model ;)

Answer 1

Well, I don't know, it that's the right way to do this.
Would be nice if someone, who actually understands this API, told me.

But well, seams to work.

public class SomeClass {
  private final ProcessingEnvironment pe = /* get it somewhere */;
  private final Types typeUtils = pe.getTypeUtils();

  public TypeElement getExtracted(VariableElement ve) {
    TypeMirror typeMirror = ve.asType();
    Element element = typeUtils.asElement(typeMirror);

    // instanceof implies null-ckeck
    return (element instanceof TypeElement)
        ? (TypeElement)element : null;
  }
}

It seems that the class Types has to be got from current ProcessingEnvironment because some of its internals depend on it, so it's not a usual utility class.