1 /* 2 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more 3 * contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file distributed with 4 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership. 5 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0 6 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with 7 * the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at 8 * 9 * 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 package org.apache.commons.beanutils; 18 19 /** 20 * <p>A <strong>DynaClass</strong> is a simulation of the functionality of 21 * <code>java.lang.Class</code> for classes implementing the 22 * <code>DynaBean</code> interface. DynaBean instances that share the same 23 * DynaClass all have the same set of available properties, along with any 24 * associated data types, read-only states, and write-only states.</p> 25 * 26 * @version $Id$ 27 */ 28 29 public interface DynaClass { 30 31 32 /** 33 * Return the name of this DynaClass (analogous to the 34 * <code>getName()</code> method of <code>java.lang.Class</code), which 35 * allows the same <code>DynaClass</code> implementation class to support 36 * different dynamic classes, with different sets of properties. 37 * 38 * @return the name of the DynaClass 39 */ 40 public String getName(); 41 42 43 /** 44 * Return a property descriptor for the specified property, if it exists; 45 * otherwise, return <code>null</code>. 46 * 47 * @param name Name of the dynamic property for which a descriptor 48 * is requested 49 * @return The descriptor for the specified property 50 * 51 * @throws IllegalArgumentException if no property name is specified 52 */ 53 public DynaProperty getDynaProperty(String name); 54 55 56 /** 57 * <p>Return an array of <code>ProperyDescriptors</code> for the properties 58 * currently defined in this DynaClass. If no properties are defined, a 59 * zero-length array will be returned.</p> 60 * 61 * <p><strong>FIXME</strong> - Should we really be implementing 62 * <code>getBeanInfo()</code> instead, which returns property descriptors 63 * and a bunch of other stuff?</p> 64 * 65 * @return the set of properties for this DynaClass 66 */ 67 public DynaProperty[] getDynaProperties(); 68 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 * @throws IllegalAccessException if the Class or the appropriate 77 * constructor is not accessible 78 * @throws 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() 83 throws IllegalAccessException, InstantiationException; 84 85 86 }