org.metawidget.iface.Immutable Maven / Gradle / Ivy
// Metawidget (licensed under LGPL)
//
// This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
// modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
// License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
// version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
//
// This library is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
// but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
// MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
// Lesser General Public License for more details.
//
// You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
// License along with this library; if not, write to the Free Software
// Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA
package org.metawidget.iface;
/**
* Interface to indicate a class (ie. an Inspector, a Layout etc) should
* be considered immutable.
*
* Immutable classes should:
*
* - not provide any setter methods or mutators
* - make defensive copies for any getter methods
* - mark all fields final and private
*
*
* Note: this interface is not an annotation because we want it to be automatically inherited when
* placed on interfaces (such as Inspector). Even the Inherited annotation
* does not propagate from interfaces.
*
* This is an internal API and is subject to change. Clients should use one of its
* subinterfaces (ie. Inspector, Layout etc) instead.
*
* @author Richard Kennard
*/
public interface Immutable {
// Just a marker interface
}