org.netbeans.modules.xml.xam.Reference Maven / Gradle / Ivy
/*
* Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
* or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
* distributed with this work for additional information
* regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
* to you 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.netbeans.modules.xml.xam;
/**
* Represents reference to a component. On writing, this indirection help serialize
* the referenced component as an attribute string value. On reading, the referenced
* can be resolved on demand.
*
* Note: Client code should always check for brokeness before access the referenced.
*
* @author Chris Webster
* @author Rico Cruz
* @author Nam Nguyen
*/
public interface Reference {
/**
* @return the referenced component. May return null if
* #isBroken() returns true;
*/
T get();
/**
* Returns type of the referenced.
*/
Class getType();
/**
* Returns true if the reference cannot be resolved in the current document
*/
boolean isBroken();
/**
* Returns true if this reference refers to target.
*
* Note: In some implementation, this method could be more efficient than
* invoking #get() for direct checking.
*/
boolean references(T target);
/**
* @return string to use in persiting the reference as attribute string value
* of the containing component
*/
String getRefString();
}