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 */
017
018package org.apache.commons.jxpath;
019
020import java.beans.PropertyDescriptor;
021import java.io.Serializable;
022
023/**
024 * JXPathBeanInfo is similar to {@link java.beans.BeanInfo} in that it describes properties of a JavaBean class. By default, JXPathBeanInfo classes are
025 * automatically generated by {@link JXPathIntrospector JXPathIntrospector} based on the java.beans.BeanInfo. As with JavaBeans, the user can supply an
026 * alternative implementation of JXPathBeanInfo for a custom class. The alternative implementation is located by class name, which is the same as the name of
027 * the class it represents with the suffix "XBeanInfo". So, for example, if you need to provide an alternative JXPathBeanInfo class for class "com.foo.Bar",
028 * write a class "com.foo.BarXBeanInfo" and make it implement the JXPathBeanInfo interface.
029 */
030public interface JXPathBeanInfo extends Serializable {
031
032    /**
033     * Gets the class implementing the {@link DynamicPropertyHandler} interface for dynamic objects. That class can be used to access dynamic properties.
034     *
035     * @return Class The class implementing the {@link DynamicPropertyHandler} interface.
036     */
037    Class getDynamicPropertyHandlerClass();
038
039    /**
040     * Gets a PropertyDescriptor for the specified name or null if there is no such property.
041     *
042     * @param propertyName property name
043     * @return PropertyDescriptor
044     */
045    PropertyDescriptor getPropertyDescriptor(String propertyName);
046
047    /**
048     * Gets a list of property descriptors for the beans described by this bean info object. Returns null for atomic beans.
049     *
050     * @return PropertyDescriptor[]
051     */
052    PropertyDescriptor[] getPropertyDescriptors();
053
054    /**
055     * Tests whether objects of this class are treated as atomic objects which have no properties of their own. For example, {@link String} and {@link Number}
056     * are atomic.
057     *
058     * @return Tests whether objects of this class are treated as atomic objects.
059     */
060    boolean isAtomic();
061
062    /**
063     * Tests whether the objects of this class have dynamic properties (e.g. java.util.Map). If this method returns true, {@link #getPropertyDescriptors} should
064     * return null and {@link #getDynamicPropertyHandlerClass} should return a valid class name. An object cannot have both static and dynamic properties at the
065     * same time.
066     *
067     * @return whether the objects of this class have dynamic properties.
068     */
069    boolean isDynamic();
070}