    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}