01: /*
02: * Copyright 1999-2004 The Apache Software Foundation
03: *
04: * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
05: * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
06: * You may obtain a copy of the License at
07: *
08: * http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
09: *
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: }
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