Source code: org/apache/commons/jxpath/JXPathBeanInfo.java
1 /*
2 * Copyright 1999-2004 The Apache Software Foundation
3 *
4 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
5 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
6 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
7 *
8 * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
9 *
10 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
11 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
12 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
13 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
14 * limitations under the License.
15 */
16 package org.apache.commons.jxpath;
17
18 import java.beans.PropertyDescriptor;
19
20 /**
21 * JXPathBeanInfo is similar to java.beans.BeanInfo in that it describes
22 * properties of a JavaBean class. By default, JXPathBeanInfo classes are
23 * automatically generated by {@link JXPathIntrospector JXPathIntrospector}
24 * based on the java.beans.BeanInfo. As with JavaBeans, the user can supply an
25 * alternative implementation of JXPathBeanInfo for a custom class. The
26 * alternative implementation is located by class name, which is the same as the
27 * name of the class it represents with the suffix "XBeanInfo". So, for
28 * example, if you need to provide an alternative JXPathBeanInfo class for class
29 * "com.foo.Bar", write a class "com.foo.BarXBeanInfo" and make it implement the
30 * JXPathBeanInfo interface.
31 *
32 * @author Dmitri Plotnikov
33 * @version $Revision: 1.7 $ $Date: 2004/02/29 14:17:42 $
34 */
35 public interface JXPathBeanInfo {
36
37 /**
38 * Returns true if objects of this class are treated as atomic
39 * objects which have no properties of their own.
40 * For example, java.lang.String and java.lang.Number are atomic.
41 */
42 boolean isAtomic();
43
44 /**
45 * Returns true if the objects of this class have dynamic properties
46 * (e.g. java.util.Map). If this method returns true, getPropertyDescriptors
47 * should return null and getDynamicPropertyHandlerClass should return
48 * a valid class name. An object cannot have both static and dynamic
49 * properties at the same time.
50 */
51 boolean isDynamic();
52
53 /**
54 * Returns a list of property descriptors for the beans described by this
55 * bean info object. Returns null for atomic beans.
56 */
57 PropertyDescriptor[] getPropertyDescriptors();
58
59 /**
60 * Returns a PropertyDescriptor for the specified name or null if there
61 * is no such property.
62 */
63 PropertyDescriptor getPropertyDescriptor(String propertyName);
64
65 /**
66 * For dynamic objects, returns the class implementing
67 * the DynamicPropertyHandler interface. That class can
68 * be used to access dynamic properties.
69 */
70 Class getDynamicPropertyHandlerClass();
71 }