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    package org.apache.commons.jxpath;
018    
019    import java.beans.PropertyDescriptor;
020    import 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 16:59:48 -0500 (Mon, 16 Jun 2008) $
036     */
037    public 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    }