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/*
 * Copyright (c) 2008, 2023 Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
 *
 * This program and the accompanying materials are made available under the
 * terms of the Eclipse Public License v. 2.0 which is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-2.0,
 * or the Eclipse Distribution License v. 1.0 which is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/org/documents/edl-v10.php.
 *
 * SPDX-License-Identifier: EPL-2.0 OR BSD-3-Clause
 */

// Contributors:
//     Linda DeMichiel - 2.1
//     Linda DeMichiel - 2.0

package jakarta.persistence.metamodel;

import jakarta.persistence.criteria.Path;

/**
 * Instances of the type Bindable represent object or attribute types 
 * that can be bound into a {@link Path Path}.
 *
 * @param   The type of the represented object or attribute
 *
 * @since 2.0
 *
 */
public interface Bindable {
    
    enum BindableType {
        /**
         * Single-valued attribute type.
         *
         * @see SingularAttribute
         */
        SINGULAR_ATTRIBUTE, 

        /**
         * Multivalued attribute type, that is, a collection.
         *
         * @see PluralAttribute
         */
        PLURAL_ATTRIBUTE, 

        /**
         * Entity type.
         *
         * @see EntityType
         */
        ENTITY_TYPE
    }

    /**
     *  Return the bindable type of the represented object.
     *  @return bindable type
     */	
    BindableType getBindableType();

    /**
     * Return the Java type of the represented object.
     * If the bindable type of the object is PLURAL_ATTRIBUTE,
     * the Java element type is returned. If the bindable type is
     * SINGULAR_ATTRIBUTE or ENTITY_TYPE, 
     * the Java type of the
     * represented entity or attribute is returned.
     * @return Java type
     */
    Class getBindableJavaType();
}