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.beanutils2;
018
019/**
020 * <p>
021 * A <strong>DynaClass</strong> is a simulation of the functionality of {@link Class} for classes implementing the {@code DynaBean} interface. DynaBean
022 * instances that share the same DynaClass all have the same set of available properties, along with any associated data types, read-only states, and write-only
023 * states.
024 * </p>
025 */
026public interface DynaClass {
027
028    /**
029     * <p>
030     * Returns an array of {@code PropertyDescriptor} for the properties currently defined in this DynaClass. If no properties are defined, a zero-length array
031     * will be returned.
032     * </p>
033     *
034     * <p>
035     * <strong>FIXME</strong> - Should we really be implementing {@code getBeanInfo()} instead, which returns property descriptors and a bunch of other stuff?
036     * </p>
037     *
038     * @return the set of properties for this DynaClass
039     */
040    DynaProperty[] getDynaProperties();
041
042    /**
043     * Returns a property descriptor for the specified property, if it exists; otherwise, return {@code null}.
044     *
045     * @param name Name of the dynamic property for which a descriptor is requested
046     * @return The descriptor for the specified property
047     * @throws IllegalArgumentException if no property name is specified
048     */
049    DynaProperty getDynaProperty(String name);
050
051    /**
052     * Returns the name of this DynaClass (analogous to the {@code getName()} method of {@link Class}, which allows the same {@code DynaClass} implementation
053     * class to support different dynamic classes, with different sets of properties.
054     *
055     * @return the name of the DynaClass
056     */
057    String getName();
058
059    /**
060     * Instantiates and return a new DynaBean instance, associated with this DynaClass.
061     *
062     * @return A new {@code DynaBean} instance
063     * @throws IllegalAccessException if the Class or the appropriate constructor is not accessible
064     * @throws InstantiationException if this Class represents an abstract class, an array class, a primitive type, or void; or if instantiation fails for some
065     *                                other reason
066     */
067    DynaBean newInstance() throws IllegalAccessException, InstantiationException;
068
069}