001/*
002 * Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
003 * contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
004 * this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
005 * The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
006 * (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
007 * the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
008 *
009 *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
010 *
011 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
012 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
013 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
014 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
015 * limitations under the License.
016 */
017package org.apache.commons.jxpath;
018
019import java.beans.PropertyDescriptor;
020import java.io.Serializable;
021
022/**
023 * JXPathBeanInfo  is similar to {@link java.beans.BeanInfo} in that it describes
024 * properties of a JavaBean class.  By default, JXPathBeanInfo classes are
025 * automatically generated by {@link JXPathIntrospector JXPathIntrospector}
026 * based on the java.beans.BeanInfo. As with JavaBeans, the user can supply an
027 * alternative implementation of JXPathBeanInfo for a custom class.  The
028 * alternative implementation is located by class name, which is the same as the
029 * name of the class it represents with the suffix "XBeanInfo".  So, for
030 * example, if you need to provide an alternative JXPathBeanInfo class for class
031 * "com.foo.Bar", write a class "com.foo.BarXBeanInfo" and make it implement the
032 * JXPathBeanInfo interface.
033 *
034 * @author Dmitri Plotnikov
035 * @version $Revision: 668329 $ $Date: 2008-06-16 23:59:48 +0200 (Mo, 16 Jun 2008) $
036 */
037public interface JXPathBeanInfo extends Serializable {
038
039    /**
040     * Returns true if objects of this class are treated as atomic
041     * objects which have no properties of their own.
042     * For example, {@link String} and {@link Number} are atomic.
043     * @return boolean
044     */
045    boolean isAtomic();
046
047    /**
048     * Returns true if the objects of this class have dynamic properties
049     * (e.g. java.util.Map). If this method returns true, {@link #getPropertyDescriptors}
050     * should return null and {@link #getDynamicPropertyHandlerClass} should return
051     * a valid class name.  An object cannot have both static and dynamic
052     * properties at the same time.
053     * @return boolean
054     */
055    boolean isDynamic();
056
057    /**
058     * Returns a list of property descriptors for the beans described by this
059     * bean info object.  Returns null for atomic beans.
060     * @return PropertyDescriptor[]
061     */
062    PropertyDescriptor[] getPropertyDescriptors();
063
064    /**
065     * Returns a PropertyDescriptor for the specified name or null if there
066     * is no such property.
067     * @param propertyName property name
068     * @return PropertyDescriptor
069     */
070    PropertyDescriptor getPropertyDescriptor(String propertyName);
071
072    /**
073     * For dynamic objects, returns the class implementing
074     * the {@link DynamicPropertyHandler} interface. That class can
075     * be used to access dynamic properties.
076     * @return Class
077     */
078    Class getDynamicPropertyHandlerClass();
079}