org.acegisecurity.GrantedAuthority Maven / Gradle / Ivy

Go to download

Show more of this group Show more artifacts with this name
Show all versions of acegi-security

There is a newer version: 1.0.7

/* Copyright 2004 Acegi Technology Pty Limited
 *
 * 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 org.acegisecurity;

/**
 * Represents an authority granted to an {@link Authentication} object.
 * 
 * 
 * A GrantedAuthority must either represent itself as a
 * String or be specifically supported by an  {@link
 * AccessDecisionManager}.
 * 
 *
 * @author Ben Alex
 * @version $Id: GrantedAuthority.java,v 1.3 2005/11/17 00:55:49 benalex Exp $
 */
public interface GrantedAuthority {
    //~ Methods ================================================================

    /**
     * If the GrantedAuthority can be represented as a
     * String and that String is sufficient in
     * precision to be relied upon for an access control decision by an {@link
     * AccessDecisionManager} (or delegate), this method should return such a
     * String.
     * 
     * 
     * If the GrantedAuthority cannot be expressed with sufficient
     * precision as a String,  null should be
     * returned. Returning null will require an
     * AccessDecisionManager (or delegate) to  specifically
     * support the GrantedAuthority implementation,  so returning
     * null should be avoided unless actually  required.
     * 
     *
     * @return a representation of the granted authority (or null
     *         if the granted authority cannot be expressed as a
     *         String with sufficient precision).
     */
    public String getAuthority();
}