| A Component which contains other components.
A Container plays a role similar to a BeanContext.
Most Collection operations (add, remove, contains, etc) expect
either ComponentDescription or Component instances as arguments,
depending upon the caller and this component's container. In
general a ComponentDescription is preferred.
Like all components, this component has an implicit
"insertion point" in the component hierarchy. A collection
operation that specifies a ComponentDescription at a lower-level
insertion point will be forwarded down the hierarchy to the
appropriate child container.
The collection API of a container is defined to be the recursive
set of all components contained in that container. For example,
if this container contains a "sub-" container, the size of this
container includes all the components in that "sub-" container.
All collection methods are similarily defined.
The Container will implement or delegate to an implementation of
a ContainerAPI callable by associated Binders (and BinderFactories).
In turn, any Container may invoke a required BinderAPI on any of its
associated Binders.
See Also: java.beans.beancontext.BeanContext |