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/*
 * Copyright 2007 Daniel Spiewak
 * 
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); 
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. 
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 * 
 *	    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 
 * 
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package net.java.ao;

import java.lang.annotation.ElementType;
import java.lang.annotation.Retention;
import java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy;
import java.lang.annotation.Target;

/**
 * Marks a method as relevant only to a one-to-many relation.  This
 * informs ActiveObjects that the return value for the method in question
 * should be determined from a one-to-many relation  onto the type in the
 * return value.  For example:
 *
 * public interface Company {
 *     // ...
 *
 *     @OneToMany
 *     public Person[] getEmployees();
 * }
 *
 * Thus the return value of the getEmployees() method
 * would be determined by a query something like the following:
 *
 * SELECT id FROM people WHERE companyID = ?
 *
 * If the {@link #where()} clause is specified, it will be used
 * in addition to the base, necessary criterion to determine the
 * returned entities.  Thus, the one-to-many relation could be referenced
 * in the following way:
 *
 * public interface Company {
 *     // ...
 *
 *     @OneToMany(where="deleted = FALSE")
 *     public Person[] getEmployees();
 * }
 *
 * This would lead to a query like the following:
 *
 * SELECT id FROM people WHERE companyID = ? AND (deleted = FALSE)
 *
 * @author Daniel Spiewak
 */
@Retention(RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME)
@Target(ElementType.METHOD)
public @interface OneToMany {

    /**
     * The name of the corresponding getter method in the entities returned by the annotated method.
     *
     * If this is not specified, a warning will be logged at migration time, and ActiveObjects may behave in
     * unexpected ways. Future versions of ActiveObjects may require that this property be specified.
     *
     * @see AO-325
     */
    String reverse() default "";

    /**
     * A String clause allowing developer-specified additional
     * conditions to be imposed on the relationship.  The String
     * must be a proper SQL WHERE clause:
     *
     * "deleted = FALSE"
     *
     * One must be extremely careful with this sort of thing though
     * because sometimes (as is the case with the above sample), the
     * unparameterized code may not execute as expected against every
     * database (due to differences in typing and value handling).  Thus,
     * in all but non-trivial cases, defined implementations should be used.
     */
    String where() default "";
}