01: /*
02: * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
03: * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with
04: * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
05: * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
06: * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
07: * the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
08: *
09: * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
10: *
11: * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
12: * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
13: * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
14: * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
15: * limitations under the License.
16: */
17:
18: package org.apache.commons.beanutils;
19:
20: /**
21: * <p>A <strong>DynaClass</strong> is a simulation of the functionality of
22: * <code>java.lang.Class</code> for classes implementing the
23: * <code>DynaBean</code> interface. DynaBean instances that share the same
24: * DynaClass all have the same set of available properties, along with any
25: * associated data types, read-only states, and write-only states.</p>
26: *
27: * @author Craig McClanahan
28: * @author Michael Smith
29: * @author Paulo Gaspar
30: * @version $Revision: 555824 $ $Date: 2007-07-13 01:27:15 +0100 (Fri, 13 Jul 2007) $
31: */
32:
33: public interface DynaClass {
34:
35: /**
36: * Return the name of this DynaClass (analogous to the
37: * <code>getName()</code> method of <code>java.lang.Class</code), which
38: * allows the same <code>DynaClass</code> implementation class to support
39: * different dynamic classes, with different sets of properties.
40: *
41: * @return the name of the DynaClass
42: */
43: public String getName();
44:
45: /**
46: * Return a property descriptor for the specified property, if it exists;
47: * otherwise, return <code>null</code>.
48: *
49: * @param name Name of the dynamic property for which a descriptor
50: * is requested
51: * @return The descriptor for the specified property
52: *
53: * @exception IllegalArgumentException if no property name is specified
54: */
55: public DynaProperty getDynaProperty(String name);
56:
57: /**
58: * <p>Return an array of <code>ProperyDescriptors</code> for the properties
59: * currently defined in this DynaClass. If no properties are defined, a
60: * zero-length array will be returned.</p>
61: *
62: * <p><strong>FIXME</strong> - Should we really be implementing
63: * <code>getBeanInfo()</code> instead, which returns property descriptors
64: * and a bunch of other stuff?</p>
65: *
66: * @return the set of properties for this DynaClass
67: */
68: public DynaProperty[] getDynaProperties();
69:
70: /**
71: * Instantiate and return a new DynaBean instance, associated
72: * with this DynaClass.
73: *
74: * @return A new <code>DynaBean</code> instance
75: *
76: * @exception IllegalAccessException if the Class or the appropriate
77: * constructor is not accessible
78: * @exception InstantiationException if this Class represents an abstract
79: * class, an array class, a primitive type, or void; or if instantiation
80: * fails for some other reason
81: */
82: public DynaBean newInstance() throws IllegalAccessException,
83: InstantiationException;
84:
85: }
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