An IGroupMember defines common behavior for both the leaf
IEntity and composite IEntityGroup sub-types
that together make up a Groups structure.
An IGroupMember can answer both its parents and its children but
has no api for adding or removing them. These methods are defined on
the composite type, IEntityGroup, since you add a member to a
group, and not vice versa.
Because it extends IBasicEntity, an IGroupMember has
an EntityIdentifier that can be used to cache and lock it. A leaf
IGroupMember also has a separate EntityIdentifier for
its underlying entity. This second EntityIdentifier is used to
create and record group memberships. In the case of a composite (non-leaf)
IGroupMember, both EntityIdentifiers are the same.
Take care to implement equals() and hashCode() so
that duplicates returned from "deep" methods can be recognized.
author:
Dan Ellentuck
version:
$Revision: 34758 $ |