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RDF2go is an implementation-independent Java API with the design goals: portability (hence the name), performance and ease of implementation. This project was started at FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik Karlsruhe, Germany - www.fzi.de

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/**
 * LICENSE INFORMATION
 *
 * Copyright 2005-2008 by FZI (http://www.fzi.de).
 * Licensed under a BSD license (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php)
 *  = Max Völkel
 *  = FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany
 *  = 2010
 *
 * Further project information at http://semanticweb.org/wiki/RDF2Go
 */

package org.ontoware.rdf2go.model.node;

/**
 * Marker interface for RDF types (URI, BlankNode, Literal)
 * 
 * The following sorting order is defined by different Node types: URI >
 * BlankNode > PlainLiteral > LanguageTaggedLiteral > DatatypedLiteral
 * 
 * Nodes are expected to have correct implementations of equals(Object other)
 * and hashcode()
 * 
 * @author voelkel
 * 
 */
public interface Node extends NodeOrVariable, Comparable {

	/**
	 * A convenience method for a cast to
	 * org.ontoware.rdf2go.model.node.Resource
	 * 
	 * @return this Node casted as a Resource
	 * @throws ClassCastException
	 *             if the node is not a Resource
	 */
	public Resource asResource() throws ClassCastException;

	/**
	 * A convenience method for a cast to org.ontoware.rdf2go.model.node.Literal
	 * 
	 * @return this Node casted as a Literal
	 * @throws ClassCastException
	 *             if the node is not a Literal
	 */
	public Literal asLiteral() throws ClassCastException;

	/**
	 * A convenience method for a cast to
	 * org.ontoware.rdf2go.model.node.DatatypeLiteral
	 * 
	 * @return this Node casted as a DatatypeLiteral
	 * @throws ClassCastException
	 *             if the node is not a DatatypeLiteral
	 */
	public DatatypeLiteral asDatatypeLiteral() throws ClassCastException;

	/**
	 * A convenience method for a cast to
	 * org.ontoware.rdf2go.model.node.LanguageTagLiteral
	 * 
	 * @return this Node casted as a LanguageTagLiteral
	 * @throws ClassCastException
	 *             if the node is not a LanguageTagLiteral
	 */
	public LanguageTagLiteral asLanguageTagLiteral() throws ClassCastException;

	/**
	 * A convenience method for a cast to org.ontoware.rdf2go.model.node.URI
	 * 
	 * @return this Node casted as a URI
	 * @throws ClassCastException
	 *             if the node is not a URI
	 */
	public URI asURI() throws ClassCastException;

	/**
	 * A convenience method for a cast to
	 * org.ontoware.rdf2go.model.node.BlankNode
	 * 
	 * @return this Node casted as a BlankNode
	 * @throws ClassCastException
	 *             if the node is not a BlankNode
	 */
	public BlankNode asBlankNode() throws ClassCastException;

	/**
	 * A convenience function to create SPARQL queries from nodes
	 * 
	 * @return this node in SPARQL syntax. A URI is wrapped in '<' and
	 *         '>'. A literal is wrapped in '"' chars and escaped.
	 */
	public String toSPARQL();

}