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/*
 * Copyright (c) 2011, 2018 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:
//     12/18/2009-2.1 Guy Pelletier
//       - 211323: Add class extractor support to the EclipseLink-ORM.XML Schema
package org.eclipse.persistence.annotations;

import org.eclipse.persistence.expressions.Expression;

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

import static java.lang.annotation.ElementType.TYPE;
import static java.lang.annotation.RetentionPolicy.RUNTIME;

/**
 * A ClassExtractor allows for a user defined class indicator in place of
 * providing a discriminator column. The class has the following restrictions:
 * 
 *  It must extend the org.eclipse.persistence.descriptors.ClassExtractor
 *    class and implement the extractClassFromRow(Record, Session) method.
 * 
 That method must take a database row (a Record/Map) as an argument and
 *    must return the class to use for that row.
 * 
 * This method will be used to decide which class to instantiate when reading
 * from the database. It is the application's responsibility to populate any
 * typing information in the database required to determine the class from the
 * row.
 * 
 * The ClassExtractor must only be set on the root of an entity class or
 * sub-hierarchy in which a different inheritance strategy is applied. The
 * ClassExtractor can only be used with the SINGLE_TABLE and JOINED inheritance
 * strategies.
 * 

 * If a ClassExtractor is used then a DiscriminatorColumn cannot be used. A
 * DiscriminatorColumn also cannot be used on either the root or its subclasses.
 * 
 * In addition, for more complex configurations using a ClassExtractor and a
 * SINGLE_TABLE strategy, the descriptor's withAllSubclasses and onlyInstances
 * expressions should be set through the ClassExtractor's initialize method.
 *
 * @see org.eclipse.persistence.descriptors.ClassExtractor
 * @see org.eclipse.persistence.descriptors.InheritancePolicy#setWithAllSubclassesExpression(Expression)
 * @see org.eclipse.persistence.descriptors.InheritancePolicy#setOnlyInstancesExpression(Expression)
 *
 * @author Guy Pelletier
 * @since EclipseLink 2.1
 */
@Target({TYPE})
@Retention(RUNTIME)
public @interface ClassExtractor {
    /**
     * (Required) Defines the name of the class extractor that should be
     * applied to this entity's descriptor.
     */
    Class value();
}