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    
018    
019    package org.apache.commons.beanutils;
020    
021    
022    
023    
024    
025    /**
026     * <p>A <strong>DynaClass</strong> is a simulation of the functionality of
027     * <code>java.lang.Class</code> for classes implementing the
028     * <code>DynaBean</code> interface.  DynaBean instances that share the same
029     * DynaClass all have the same set of available properties, along with any
030     * associated data types, read-only states, and write-only states.</p>
031     *
032     * @author Craig McClanahan
033     * @author Michael Smith
034     * @author Paulo Gaspar
035     * @version $Revision: 555824 $ $Date: 2007-07-13 01:27:15 +0100 (Fri, 13 Jul 2007) $
036     */
037    
038    public interface DynaClass {
039    
040    
041        /**
042         * Return the name of this DynaClass (analogous to the
043         * <code>getName()</code> method of <code>java.lang.Class</code), which
044         * allows the same <code>DynaClass</code> implementation class to support
045         * different dynamic classes, with different sets of properties.
046         *
047         * @return the name of the DynaClass
048         */
049        public String getName();
050    
051    
052        /**
053         * Return a property descriptor for the specified property, if it exists;
054         * otherwise, return <code>null</code>.
055         *
056         * @param name Name of the dynamic property for which a descriptor
057         *  is requested
058         * @return The descriptor for the specified property
059         *
060         * @exception IllegalArgumentException if no property name is specified
061         */
062        public DynaProperty getDynaProperty(String name);
063    
064    
065        /**
066         * <p>Return an array of <code>ProperyDescriptors</code> for the properties
067         * currently defined in this DynaClass.  If no properties are defined, a
068         * zero-length array will be returned.</p>
069         *
070         * <p><strong>FIXME</strong> - Should we really be implementing
071         * <code>getBeanInfo()</code> instead, which returns property descriptors
072         * and a bunch of other stuff?</p>
073         *
074         * @return the set of properties for this DynaClass
075         */
076        public DynaProperty[] getDynaProperties();
077    
078    
079        /**
080         * Instantiate and return a new DynaBean instance, associated
081         * with this DynaClass.
082         *
083         * @return A new <code>DynaBean</code> instance
084         *
085         * @exception IllegalAccessException if the Class or the appropriate
086         *  constructor is not accessible
087         * @exception InstantiationException if this Class represents an abstract
088         *  class, an array class, a primitive type, or void; or if instantiation
089         *  fails for some other reason
090         */
091        public DynaBean newInstance()
092                throws IllegalAccessException, InstantiationException;
093    
094    
095    }